Bonds of Honor
by ObsidianJade
Summary: Direct sequel to Red Duty, Black Honor. Life - and love - continue, but a familiar face from the past has a storm brewing on the horizon... Bya/Ren and Ichi/Ruki main pairings.
1. Beginning Anew

A/N: Well, here it is!

Just a few notes before we start; while this is a sequel to RDBH, it is not the same story. While I will be maintaining the same romantic and humorous undertones throughout, there will be darker drama and angst present. I will also be introducing a pack of OC's, although I promise I will play nice with them and try very hard not to let them Mary-Sue on me.

You'll be seeing more of the Karakura Gang in this story, and more pairings (many of them het, in this case) making an appearance, although, no fear, all couples from RDBH will definitely be in the spotlight as well.

The chapters will alternate back and forth between the Living World and the Soul Society; I will try, for the sake of clarity, to maintain a one-to-one back and forth with that, although the ratio may get skewed in later chapters.

Last off, I want to give a huge and heartfelt thank-you to everyone who read RDBH - you guys are, as often as not, my reason for getting up in the mornings, at least on Wednesdays, ;-). Love you all and hope you enjoy Bonds of Honor!

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach and make no monetary gain from the writing or publishing of this work. Kubo-sama is a god and I am merely playing in his world.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter One: Beginning Anew

* * *

"Attend your son's wedding? Why in the three worlds would I wish to do something as abysmally foolish as that?"

Sprawled comfortably in the hard wooden chair on the opposite side of the immense desk, Kurosaki Isshin never let the broad smile slip from his face. "Because, like it or not, Ryuuken, your son and my son are friends, and that makes you family."

"Souken must be rolling in his grave," the silver-haired Quincy shot back, raising his head so that the flare of light on the lenses of his glasses masked his eyes.

"On the contrary," chuckled Isshin, "your father was always wiser than you. I would think he'd praise you for making an overture of peace."

"All the more reason to decline your absurdly foolish offer, Isshin," Ryuuken shot back. "Rarely did I agree with anything my father supported."

"Including your own son, sadly enough," Isshin answered, grunting slightly as he rolled out of the chair.

Thin silver eyebrows arched. "Has Ichigo forgiven you yet, for lying to him his entire life?"

"Shut up, Ryuuken," came the weary sigh. "The wedding's in a week, two o'clock. We're holding it at Urahara's. Byakuya kicked up a fuss, of course, so they're having a second ceremony in Seireitei proper to appease the Kuchiki Clan, but the real wedding's being held here, so that everyone can attend."

"Including most of the senior officers of the Gotei, I assume? It sounds like a marvelous opportunity for an ambush," Ryuuken remarked dryly, reaching for one of the budget folders on the far side of his desk. "You may leave, Isshin, and take your idiotic notions of peace between our people with you."

Isshin rolled his eyes in response. "We still on for drinks this Friday?"

"We drink together every Friday, barring emergencies. Why should this one be any different?"

"Just checking," came the laughing reply. "And you know, our sons do pretty well at the whole Shinigami-Quincy peace thing..."

* * *

"Getsuga Tenshou!"

Ishida Uryuu leaped, barely managing to dodge the massive arc of red-black power that descended upon him, shattering the ground where he had been only a split-second before. A few fragments of shattered rock raked over him, and he hissed, thankful for the white leather gloves he'd taken to wearing to protect his hands. Hitting the rocky, dusty ground, he grunted and rolled with the impact, using the momentum to spring back to his feet.

"You all right there, Ishida?"

Pushing his glasses up his nose, Uryuu glowered upwards to the top the oversized lump of rock where Ichigo stood, Zangetsu's massive blade resting over his shoulder and a casual smirk on his face.

Turning up his nose with a sniff, the young Quincy began slapping the dust off of his once-pristine outfit, all the while silently cursing Quincy tradition for the garments being white. Purity was all well and good, but it was damned hard to keep white _pure_. "I don't suppose the concept of _aiming_ actually exists in your vocabulary, Kurosaki..."

"Hey, it missed you!"

"Because I dodged, you imbecile! You shot that right at my head!"

"I know what your reflexes are, Ishida. We've fought together enough."

"That doesn't mean you can just arbitrarily assume I'm going to tumble out of the way in time to avoid your strikes!"

"Yes it -"

"HEY!"

Momentarily silenced, both boys turned, blinking, to their interruption.

"If you two are done flirting," said Arisawa Tatsuki, hands on her hips, while Kiego, Mizuiro, Chad, and Orihime watched from the background, "maybe we could all get back to training?"

* * *

Six months after his return from the Soul Society, Ichigo had finally succeeded in getting his life back into some semblance of order. With Chad and Uryuu's help, he had caught up on the schoolwork he had missed (Kon had done a surprisingly good job of maintaining his grades), begun work at his father's Clinic to earn a little money (it was the only employment he could think of that didn't necessitate excuses every time a Hollow appeared), and returned to Seireitei every weekend to check up on Kira, visit with Rukia, and generally escape the real world.

It was then, after his life had managed to gain some semblance of routine - he would never call it 'normalcy,' because there was nothing normal about it - he kept his word to begin training the spiritually-aware civilians of Karakura.

For simplicity's sake, he'd started with his friends.

He had called Tatsuki, Mizuiro, and Kiego to Urahara's shop, sat them down, and explained everything, from Rukia's arrival and his unexpected empowerment to his Hollowfication, right through the Winter War and his later Captaincy, and every detail in between.

Although the trio had already known the gist of it all, hearing the facts laid so completely bare before them had been... unsettling. Particularly when Ichigo had told them about his battle with Ulquiorra - _'You mean you've got a homicidal monster living in you _right now_?'_ Kiego had squeaked, edging away from the table, until Tatsuki walloped him in the head and Ichigo looked at him, his expression anguished. Kiego had sat back down without another word, apology in his eyes.

And then Ichigo had told them what he'd told the Seireitei; that he had every intention of training every sane and spiritually-aware person he could lay his hands on in Karakura, so that they could defend themselves and their city from Hollows.

Yamamoto hadn't been particularly happy with the idea, but Ichigo - guided by Ukitake - had found the records of human civilian deaths due to Hollow activity throughout Karakura in the last twenty years. When he'd informed the Captain's Council that over two hundred people a year died of Hollow attacks in Karakura alone, more than half of the Captains had thrown their support behind his proposal within minutes.

* * *

It had taken almost six weeks to get them even to the point of focusing and channeling their energy. Ichigo glanced over his three 'students' once again - Mizuiro sitting in a full lotus position, enormous headphones over his ears, eyes closed as he hummed along to the music, a teacup-sized ball of power glowing in his hands; Kiego, who was staring at the glowing rock he held with bewilderment on his face; and Tatsuki, who was steadily moving through katas while odd flickers of energy glinted on her arms and hands.

"This is ridiculous," Ichigo groaned, flopping backwards on the rock and staring upwards at the brightly painted artificial sky. Shinji had been kind enough to permit them the use of the Shoten's basement for their 'sessions,' but Ichigo was about ready to throw in the towel as far as the whole mess was concerned. When faced with a challenge to his own strength, he could rise to meet it, no matter the odds, but instilling that same ability in someone else?

Especially with his 'students.' Down below him, Kiego was trying to balance the glowing rock on his nose and failing miserably, yelping every time it fell into his eye, until Mizuiro finally lost his temper and kicked his friend, causing Kiego to shriek loud enough to disrupt Tatsuki's focus as well. The rock bounced off somewhere, glow fading as it rolled away, and Kiego leapt backwards as Tatsuki swung a punch at him out of sheer frustration. All three of them could sense Ichigo's disappointment, and it made the air of the basement bitter.

"I'm not cut out for this," Ichigo sighed, and blinked when a massive shadow eclipsed his light. "Oy, you - oh. Chad."

"Hey," the big man grunted, folding his legs to settle beside his friend. "What's wrong?"

"I think I suck as a teacher," Ichigo replied absently, watching as Tatsuki began chasing Kiego across the floor. "They're not making progress."

"That's not right," Chad answered softly, and when Ichigo lifted his head enough to look at his friend, Chad shook his head slightly and elaborated. "They're not making the progress you made. But they're not you, Ichigo."

There was a short silence before one corner of the tight mouth arched up. "Are you telling me I should have a double standard?"

"I'm telling you you're outside standards," Chad answered, rising to his feet again. "Tatsuki!"

Surprise at hearing the gentle tiger raise his voice - let alone address her directly - halted Tatsuki in her tracks, wide-eyed. Nodding, Chad jumped down to her, landing easily on the brittle ground. Straightening up, he chased Kiego off with a look, and turned his attention to Tatsuki.

"Attack me."

"What?" Tatsuki squawked back, disbelief raising her voice sharply. "Sado, I'm not going to -"

"_Tatsuki_," Chad repeated heavily, and the girl froze, silent. "Attack me."

"If you insist," came the unsure reply, and within a second the lean body was hurtling at Chad, one foot arcing upwards to connect with his shoulder -

Until Chad caught her by the ankle and flipped her aside like a fly. She hit the ground with a yelp, more startled than hurt, but Kiego and Ichigo both moved forward on instinct, halted before they could take a full step by Chad's upraised hand.

"Again," he ordered simply, watching the girl raise herself up, spitting dust.

"Like hell," came the return growl, but Chad simply watched her, eyes impassive behind thick bangs, and Tatsuki snarled softly and charged him again. The results were the same, except she flew farther this time, and the sound of her landing was louder. She didn't cry out with the impact, but the pained hiss that escaped her when she struggled to her feet was enough to tell them she was hurt.

"Again."

"Chad, what the hell are you -"

"Be quiet, Ichigo. Tatsuki. _Again_."

This time, when she charged at him, there was a spark of real fury in her eyes.

And when her kick connected, it was Chad that went flying backwards - twenty feet backwards, slamming into one of the rock cliffs that dotted the training grounds with enough force to drive him into it, shattering the rock around him.

The stunned silence of the basement was broken only by the sound of shifting stone, broken fragments of the sandy rock clattering down through the dust.

"Chad!" Ichigo shouted, leaping from his perch and rushing past a stunned Tatsuki, who was staring at the shattered rock with disbelieving horror. "_Chad_!"

A deep-chested cough answered him, and the dust finally settled enough for them to see Chad, eyes wide under the fringe of his dark hair, carefully extracting himself from the fragmented remains of the rock. The shield on his right arm, raised a split-second before Tatsuki's kick struck, had a crack running the entire length of it.

Glancing down at the crack, he grunted softly and ran the fingers of his left hand slowly across the fracture, reweaving the threads of energy that formed the shield. Then, glancing up at Tatsuki, he said simply, "Good. Again."

* * *

Hours later, when Tatsuki had collapsed, panting, on the dusty ground and refused to move, Chad nodded slightly and finally let the others - Orihime, amazed but worried, and Kiego and Mizuiro, simply amazed - swarm the girl with questions as he walked a short ways away to talk to Ichigo.

"How did you do that?" Ichigo demanded, as soon as they were out of earshot of the others. "Six weeks I've been trying to get anything out of them, and it takes you two hours?"

"Simple," Chad answered, rubbing his arm absently. "I recognized her powers."

Ichigo blinked in confusion. "What do you... recognized? Her abilities aren't anything like yours."

"Not mine," Chad corrected. "Yoroichi's."

"You mean Shunko?" The tone bordered on incredulity, which was not surprising. Rubbing his arm again - even through his shield, Tatsuki's empowered kicks were painful - Chad nodded in response.

"Like Shunko. She doesn't have Yoroichi's experience, so she has to get angry to release it. It'll be easier now."

"It's always easier to do something a second time," Ichigo nodded, his face thoughtful. "Thanks. I probably wouldn't have gotten that on my own."

A shrug answered that; Chad never had been comfortable accepting praise, but Ichigo knew him well enough not to take offense.

"So, any thoughts on how to drag out Kiego and Mizuiro's abilities?"

"Not Mizuiro," came the slow response, "but Kiego needs to be scared, I think."

Ichigo snorted faintly. "Well," he answered dryly, raising one hand to curl his fingers in the air, feeling the dark reiatsu rise around him, "that should be easy enough."

* * *

Another five months of training had gone by before Ichigo had finally felt comfortable enough to allow his 'class' to begin tackling low-level Hollows, and even then only under strict supervision.

Now, though, two years after his return to the Living World and a full eighteen months into their training, all three had faced and defeated Hollows on their own.

Tatsuki was undoubtedly the best student of the bunch. Her kicks and punches, honed by years of martial arts and enhanced by a curious ability to channel reiatsu - or whatever passed for reiatsu in humans - into the limb to supplement the blow, were punishing enough to cripple or kill minor Hollow in a single hit.

Kiego's power was a peculiar one; he could channel energy into foreign objects. Small amounts of energy would only make the object in question glow as long as it was being fed energy - the light would dim almost immediately upon his releasing the item or the flow of reiatsu. Charging it to the overloading point, however, would cause the item to literally explode. The ability worked best on stone or metal, which meant that Kiego was now forever carrying around pebbles in his pockets; at least, if he couldn't steal gintou from the Ishidas. He'd become an expert at dumping power into anything from pebbles to paperclips and throwing them at Hollow before they exploded - he'd even managed to take out a midrange Hollow with a stone the size of his fist and an empty soup can.

Mizuiro's power was vaguely similar to Kiego's in that the results were explosive., but other than that, they were quite dissimilar. Mizuiro still had to hum or sing to focus his abilities - an odd quirk that Ichigo just shrugged off after a while. That humming, though, allowed Mizuiro to produce fist-sized, translucent white spheres of energy that produced their own steady glow. Unlike Kiego's explosive charges, these could be quite safely handled and transported - by anyone, not only Mizuiro - and had been used for emergency lighting in more than one situation.

At one point, Tatsuki had jokingly referred to the little spheres as 'the world's deadliest water balloons,' and the comparison was actually quite fitting - although they could be handled safely, if carefully, the spheres exploded with a sharp impact. And despite the diminutive size and appearance, the results were... impressive.

Although all of them were currently competent and getting better, Ichigo kept the twice-weekly practices in session, working on things like strength and stamina and dodging techniques, since none of the three had any defensive skills to speak of.

That was, in fact, why Uryuu had originally been dragged along to the practice sessions, three months before. His aim was far more accurate than Ichigo's, and his spiritual arrows gave excellent incentive to dodge - quickly.

* * *

"_If you two are done flirting, maybe we could all get back to training?"_

"Heh," Ichigo answered, slinging Zangetsu over his back and jumping down to where Uryuu stood, still fuming. "Don't let Rukia hear you talking like that, Tatsuki."

"Hear her talking like what?" inquired a familiar voice from the ladder, and Ichigo spun around, his expression startled.

"Rukia!"

"Who else?" she countered, kicking away from the ladder to drop the last few feet, landing with barely a puff of dust. "Hey, everyone."

A fractured chorus of cheerful greetings answered her, and Ichigo let a smile cross his face as he strode to her. "I didn't think you'd get back here for another couple of days. How's Ukitake?"

"Taichou's fine, actually," Rukia replied. "The attack wasn't serious, and between Unohana's care and Kyouraku's mother-henning, he has more help than he needs. Sentarou and Kiyone are doing pretty well without me, too," she added with a chuckle.

"Funny, I thought a Lieutenant was supposed to make herself indispensable, not more dispensable," Ichigo snickered, and earned a smack on the head in response.

"Being a Lieutenant means ensuring the Squad operates at peak efficiency, whether or not you are actually present," she shot back, and Ichigo grinned down at her in response.

Being a Lieutenant suited Rukia. The added responsibilities had steadied her, calming her temper and deepening her consideration of her actions. She stood a little taller now - as much confidence as actual added height - her face a little leaner, her movements sure and graceful from the lithe muscle her training had added. When she spoke, even casually, there was a strength in her voice that had not been there before she'd assumed the rank two years ago.

"Besides, I'm sure I'll be indisposed for a while after our wedding," Rukia added for Ichigo's ears alone. It delighted her no end that her fiance - now nearly twenty and one of the most respected warriors of the Seireitei - still blushed at the slightest innuendo.

Leaning back a little, Rukia glanced around Ichigo's shoulder to meet Tatsuki's eyes. "And what was it you were saying that I shouldn't have heard?"

Tatsuki laughed in response, pulling a water bottle off her belt and tipping a bit of it over her head before drinking. "I told him to stop flirting with Ishida so that we could all get back to work," she grinned, then threw the bottle at Ichigo's head.

He caught it without missing a beat and set it down at the bottom of the ladder, where it would be at least moderately out of harm's way once the heavy combat started.

Rukia, for her part, laughed softly in response. "A week to go until our wedding, and my fiance is flirting with a man? How typical," she grinned, drawing Sode no Shirayuki with a practiced sweep of her arm. "I guess I'll have to teach him a lesson, then."

Zangetsu flashed in the artificial light as Ichigo swung the massive blade forward. "Let's go, then, _Sensei_."

Tatsuki barked a laugh as the the pair of them vanished into Shunpo, headed for a farther spot in the cavern where their fight wouldn't get anyone else burned, blasted, or flash-frozen. Turning back to the group, she nodded to Chad, who returned the gesture silently and stepped forward.

* * *

Over an hour later, the group stumbled back together, every one of them dusty, bruised, and positively beaming.

"All right, everyone," said Ichigo, grinning himself as he sealed Zangetsu with a thought, sheathing the elegant katana smoothly at his hip. His hand lingered for a moment on the hilt, the patterned black-and-white wrapping marking the blade's continued uniqueness. "You already know training's suspended through next week - Mashiro said she can't decorate the shop with us blowing things up down here," he continued, ignoring the badly-muffled snickers of the group.

Truth be told, Ichigo had his doubts about allowing the scatterbrained Visored to decorate for his wedding, but she had been insistent.

Byakuya, upon learning of it, had begun sending a steady stream of servants back and forth through the Kuchiki family's personal Senkaimon, all of whom were old enough to remember Mashiro and experienced enough to deal with her help.

Even with the Kuchiki servants overseeing the food, decorations, and attire, though, Ichigo couldn't shake a niggling feeling of concern about the wedding. Then again, given the guest list, perhaps he should have been more worried...

* * *

"A little to the left... to the _left_... to your other left, dumbass! Whoops, wait, my bad. My left, your right."

Kensei glowered down from the top of the stepladder he was rather precariously balanced on, eyes narrowed as they focused on the blond Visored leader. Slowly, he hefted the hammer in his hand, and Shinji scrambled backwards, both hands raised in surrender.

"Honest mistake, Kensei, really!"

" 'course it was," Ichimaru Gin grinned sarcastically, slipping fluidly around the ladder with a tray of drinks in his hands. "Thirsty?"

"No," Shinji answered, as a scowling Kensei went back to his job of tacking streamers to the exposed beams of the ceiling. "But check on Hachi and Tessai, they're outside trying to maintain the reiatsu shields. And Isshin's in the front room, and I guarantee you that everyone with him needs a drink."

"Ain' it the truth," Gin answered, eyes rolling behind half-closed lids. Swooping the tray upwards, he swept it easily over Mashiro's head as the green-haired girl burst through the doorway, shouting something about fish cakes, and Kensei whacked himself in the thumb with the hammer and swore loud enough to make her jump.

"What the hell is it now, Kuna?" he demanded irritably, shaking his hand sharply in an attempt to relive the throbbing pain in his thumb.

"All the fish cakes for the buffet smell funny!" the girl wailed back, pulling at her hair, and Kensei rolled his eyes in disgust.

"Of course they smell funny, you idiot. They're fish!"

Shaking his head, Shinji turned towards the door and called sharply, "Oy, Yoroichi!"

There was a few second's pause before the dark head popped around the edge of the screen, dark-purple hair crowned with a delicate fall of silk flowers. "You called?"

"Yeah," Shinji answered sourly. "You're a cat - anything wrong with the fishcakes?"

"Not at all," she answered, reply edging out through a tight smile. "In fact, they're delicious. Was that all?"

"For the minute, yeah," Shinji nodded, attention already elsewhere, as Mashiro sulked her way back out of the room and Kensei turned his attention back to the streamer he'd been working on, hammering the tacks into place with a few precise strokes.

"There!" he exclaimed a minute later. "Done! Finally..."

Just as he spoke, however, the burst of reiatsu fro the opening Senkaimon rippled through the room, tearing the crepe paper streamers from their anchors and sending them fluttering through the air.

Disbelieving, Kensei at the top of the ladder for a long moment, watching as the work of the past two hours drifted silently to the ground. Letting out a wordless yell of frustration, he hurled the hammer he still held at the two figures emerging from the Senkaimon, leaped down from the ladder, and stormed from the room. Snickering an apology, Shinji ducked out after him.

"Well, that was a hell of a welcome," Abarai Renji remarked offhandedly, glancing down at the hammer he'd snatched out of its midair flight, only inches from colliding with his partner's head.

"Indeed," Byakuya countered dryly, putting a hand on Renji's elbow to guide the other man forward, out of the way of the Senkaimon. "I would not suggest returning it in the same manner."

"If I hadn't grabbed it, you certainly would," Renji shot back, setting the hammer on top of the ladder for safekeeping.

"Perhaps," Byakuya replied levelly, a faint smile touching his mouth as he turned to watch the Senkaimon disgorge Kira and Shuuhei, quickly followed by Ukitake, Kyouraku, and Ise Nanao. "But I never had any doubts you would catch it."

* * *

She couldn't recognize the figure in the mirror.

The woman gazing back at her was beautiful, her face powdered white and lips painted crimson, creating an image befitting the pure, pale white of the shiromuku kimono that garbed her. A short distance away, the brilliant crimson and gold of her uchikake - an overkimono that she would wear at the reception after the ceremony - seemed to gleam against the off-white wall it was hung against.

"Rukia-sama?"

She didn't jump - really, she didn't, even if Riko's voice had been completely unexpected. The older woman said nothing about the undignified response, however, merely smiling and directing a low bow in Rukia's direction. "Rukia-sama, the remaining guests have arrived."

"And Ichigo?" Rukia asked, gathering the silken skirts of her kimono carefully as she turned to face the woman.

"Kurosaki-sama is outside, I believe discussing the shield with Hachigen-san and Tessai-san."

"Well, that makes sense," Rukia answered, sighing softly as she glanced back at the mirror again. Her hair was so done up with combs and ornaments that she could barely hold her head up; not that anyone would see them, of course, as she was expected to wear the enormous white wataboshi hood, a traditional headpiece that was supposed to conceal her face from everyone but her groom. "After all, we can't have Hollows attacking us on our wedding day."

"I think it would be kinda par for the course, though, don't you?" countered a rough voice that was certainly not Riko's, and Rukia spun away from the mirror with a cry of delight.

"Renji!"

"Well, of course," the redhead huffed, staggering a half-step backwards as Rukia slammed into his midsection, wrapping her arms around him in a crushing hug. "Who were you expecting, Aizen?"

"That's not funny, you bastard," Rukia snapped, laughing despite herself, as she smacked her oldest friend on the head, ignoring his laughter as she slowly released him and stepped back, spreading her arms slightly so that he could see all of her outfit. "How do I look?"

"Almost as pretty as your brother," Renji grinned back, and quickly ducked backwards to avoid the delicate fist flying at his head.

"Ass. I'm trying to be serious!"

"Don't," Renji advised her, and caught her fist in his hand when she swung it again. "Rukia, you look... amazin'." Garnet eyes stared down at her for a moment longer, softening as he held her gaze. "Ichigo's a good guy, Rukia, an' he's damned lucky t' have you. He'll do right by you, so try not to be too hard on him, 'kay?"

"I'll try," came the dubious response, and Renji barked a laugh as he looked at her.

"Hell, Rukia," he murmured a moment later, shaking his head slowly as he gazed down at the girl who had been his sister before he'd even known what family was. "Why is it that every time I catch up to you, it's just in time to lose you again?"

She blinked up at him, confused for the briefest of moments, before the words struck home. Losing her to Byakuya's adoption. Losing her to the Living World, to the Sokyouku and her execution, and now, when they were truly able to call one another 'family,' she would be leaving once again.

She smiled as she took one of his big hands in both of hers, but her eyes were suspiciously bright, and her grip on his hand was almost painful. "You don't need me, Renji," she said gently, her voice suspiciously thick as she spoke. "You never did - you were always the one that kept us safe and fed and protected. But you've got Nii-sama now, and you're not losing me - you're gaining a brother-in-law."

"And his whole, crazy family," Renji added with a mock grimace as Isshin began loudly berating Urahara for gods-knew-what. Karin bellowed at the both of them to shut up, and then - if the yelps were any indication - enforced her demand with her fists.

"Our dreams come true," Rukia laughed wetly, and tugged on the shoulder of his haori, pulling him down enough for her to kiss him on the cheek.

Barking a laugh, Renji pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and handed it to her; cautious of her heavy makeup, Rukia dabbed her eyes dry before folding the square of linen up and tucking it into her own sleeve. "We... really have made it, haven't we?" she laughed, tears and amazement still thick in her voice. "Half a century ago we were standing on a hill in Inuzuri, and now we're both..." _Nobles. Ranking officers. Married._

"Yeah," Renji grinned, the unsaid words clear to him. "We made it. Now finish gettin' dressed, already. Ichigo's waitin' for ya."

And Rukia laughed and cried all at once, smiling more broadly than Renji had ever seen, and spun back to the hands of her attendants to finish preparations while Renji slipped silently back out the door.

Byakuya was standing in the hallway just outside of her room, statue-still and silent, and he looked perfectly composed until one looked close enough to see the faintly downturned edges of his mouth, the weight in his eyes. Without hesitating, Renji took the few short steps that put him beside the man, wrapping his hand around Byakuya's cool one.

"You okay?"

"I am well enough," Byakuya replied softly, after a moment. "She is happy. That is what matters."

Laughing under his breath, Renji wrapped his free arm around Byakuya's slim shoulders and gently but insistently pulled the man against his chest. Byakuya - never one for a public display - tensed slightly, resisting the pull, but when Renji maintained the pressure against his shoulders, he eventually allowed himself to be guided forward, bending his head to rest it against Renji's shoulder.

"Givin' someone up is never easy," Renji said softly, and felt the warmth of Byakuya's breath as the other man huffed in response.

"It is not," came the faintly muffled reply, and Byakuya raised his head again, stepping back slightly so that he could meet Renji's eyes. "But as I said, she is happy. And who am I to deny my sister the happiness that I have already found?"


	2. Secrets of Gold

Well, welcome to chapter two! Thanks to all of my readers, reviewers, watchers, and favoriters (?) for getting BoH off to a great start! Hope you guys enjoy this one just as much as RDBH and that I can learn to stop abusing exclamation points!

Warnings: For this chapter, more allusions to underage sexual situations.

Rei: Japanese woman's name, in this case meaning 'nothing' or 'zero.'

'obaa-san' - traditional honorific meaning 'grandmother,' although this is occasionally also applied to elderly women of no relation. (Ichigo is known to call Yamamoto 'jii-san,' or 'Gramps,' in the same manner that Kyouraku calls him 'Yama-jii,' roughly 'Old Yama.' A more polite form would be ojii-san, meaning 'grandfather.' Dropping the 'o' eliminates a significant portion of the respect involved in the term.)

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 2: Secrets of Gold

* * *

Matsumoto was drunk.

_Very_ drunk, in fact, which was rather unusual, given that it was only lunchtime. While the wayward Lieutenant often spent her workdays in varying shades of 'tipsy,' she usually waited for the workday to end before attempting to thoroughly drown her problems in the bottom of a bottle.

It was, therefore, her Captain's regrettable duty to find out why she was seeking the solace of sake hours earlier than usual.

" 's b'cause... b'cause Gin is a bat rastard," she informed him gravely, when he finally grew fed up enough to ask. Her hair was tumbled across her face; she flipped it back out of her already-bloodshot eyes with an absent wave of her hand that knocked over one of the empty bottles littering her desk.

"I see," Hitsugaya answered, watching, carefully blank-faced, as the bottle rolled across the paper-littered surface of the desk, smearing more than one critical document, before toppling over the edge and plummeting to the floor. It was saved from smashing only by landing on a large pile of paperwork that Matsumoto had knocked over an hour earlier, littering the floor beside her desk. "Is this observation a result of any particular action, or just a generalization?"

Drink-muddled blue eyes blinked back at him, working through the clearly overcomplicated question for a long moment, before comprehension dawned. "He was at the Twelfth," came the very slow, very carefully-enunciated reply. "An' Shuuhei was there. An' he told Kira that Gin said to say 'hi' to him, but he never said anything t' me," she continued morosely, before blinking twice, staring at him out of glazed eyes. "He likes him, you know," she added, with an air of imparting a great secret of the universe.

It was a testament to the unfortunate amount of experience Hitsugaya possessed in Matsumoto-logic that he had no difficulty in distilling the drunken rambling into a semi-coherent whole.

"Gin is a rat bastard because he likes Kira and didn't ask Shuuhei to say hello to you?"

"Yes!" came the triumphant yelp, and Matsumoto attempted to slap one hand on the top of her desk for emphasis, but, given that she had shifted her chair rather far to the side, managed to miss the desk entirely and nearly topple out of her seat as a result. There was a long pause while she reoriented herself, during which Hitsugaya sighed softly went back to his paperwork.

When she'd managed to return herself to the intended location at her desk, Matsumoto narrowed her eyes slightly and squinted across the office at her superior, head weaving slightly as she did so.

"D' you think that Gin's a, uhm, a rat bastard too, Captain?"

"Of course," Hitsugaya answered steadily, frowning when the head of his brush glanced off the rim of his ink disk and splattered the top of his desk. "He hurt the people he'd sworn to protect. That doesn't give him a particularly high standing in my books."

"Mmhm. You're not making fun of me, are you, Captain?" She was listing sideways in her chair; frowning in concentration, she managed to prop herself up on one elbow, staring at him expectantly.

"No, Matsumoto," he sighed back, not raising his head from the papers before him. "I don't find this funny at all."

Apparently satisfied, Matsumoto took another drink.

* * *

When she passed out on the couch half an hour later, he carefully covered her with a blanket, made sure there was a wastebasket and a glass of water within her reach, and headed to the Eighth to threaten Kyouraku with a frosty fate if the man did not stop supplying Matsumoto's alcohol habit.

* * *

When Matsumoto woke up again, an hour after sundown, she utilized both the wastebasket and the water for the purpose her Captain had intended, downed another bottle of sake without blinking, and stumbled out of the barracks, destined for Rukongai.

* * *

His haori hanging safely in his wardrobe, Hitsugaya silently pulled the charcoal-colored cloak tighter around his shoulders, the hood up to disguise his distinctive hair. His reiatsu was wrapped tighter around him than the fabric of the cloak; he had no desire to be detected tonight.

Hyorinmaru, blade still secure upon his master's back, shifted restlessly within the young Captain's mind.

"_Are you certain this is wise?_" the ancient dragon rumbled, and Hitsugaya suppressed the urge to sigh as he slipped out around his Division's night guards, silent as a fleeting shadow.

"_Probably not," _he answered silently, darting off the path and into the shadow of a bush as a group of unseateds from the Ninth meandered by, talking too loudly about a recently-rebuilt bar out in Rukongai's thirty-fourth District. Once they were past, he carefully extricated himself from the his meagre shelter - occasionally, there were advantages to being as small as he was - and darted out to the grassy verge.

He couldn't use Shunpo - the use of reiatsu would be easy for someone to detect - but even running he was as fast as the winter winds, and Matsumoto, drunk as she still was, moved slowly tonight. It didn't take him long to catch sight of her, meandering her way through the twining maze of streets that lead through the better districts.

It took almost two hours before Matsumoto finally stopped in front of a - comparatively, at least - tidy and sound house deep in the twenty-third. The walk, and the time, had at least taken the edge off of her intoxication, and she managed to stand relatively straight at the doorway as she knocked.

The old woman who answered the door had a pinched, unpleasant face that seemed at odds with her clearly overfed body, crammed into a black yukata decorated with biliously pink flowers. Hitsugaya - himself ensconced less than happily halfway up a tree at the far edge of the clearing where the building resided - was too far away to pick out smaller details than that, or catch the voices of the pair when they spoke.

As soon as she opened the door to Matsumoto, though, the old woman leaned back into the house to shout for something, apparently angering Matsumoto in the process; even from this distance, he could see her shoulders tighten, the angry clench of her fists and toss of her head.

The anger vanished, though, when a second figure, small, thin and dark-haired, garbed in a plain brown yukata, appeared in the doorway next to the old woman. Instantly, Matsumoto's shoulders unknotted, and, her entire form virtually radiating joy, Matsumoto stepped forward and embraced the newcomer. When she pulled back a second later, Matsumoto leaned forward, setting her hands on the figure's shoulders, clearly questioning something. When she received only a nod in response, she shook her head, clearly dissatisfied, and turned away.

Unhesitatingly, the other followed after her, leaving the old woman alone in the doorway. She sneered after them for a brief moment, then slammed the door, cutting off the glare of yellow lantern-light from within.

Without the harsh backlight, it was easier for Hitsugaya's dark-sharp eyes to make out the details of Matsumoto's companion; a girl, he realized, as the pair of them walked across a well-worn path, moving diagonally away from the house and somewhat closer to the tree he was obscured in.

She had to be close to Hitsugaya's own age - within a decade either way, he decided, narrowing his eyes as the pair passed close by 'his' tree. The threadbare yukata was wrapped tight around a body that was a few shades too thin to be called healthy, but the girl moved steadily in Matsumoto's wake, her strides confident on the packed-dirt path.

Hitsugaya waited long enough for the pair to get to the limits of his vision, then pulled his reiatsu and his cloak tighter still, slipped down from his tree, and followed.

* * *

It took only a few minutes of walking along the narrow, well-trodden path for Matsumoto and her little shadow to reach their destination; a small, grassy clearing, sheltered by a dense ring of thorn-laden bushes on the ground and a ring of shadowing trees above them.

Without any particular desire to be prickled to bits, Hitsugaya took to the trees once again, finding one with a broad branch twice head-hight off the ground, and stretched out along the branch, keeping himself obscured behind a large clump of leaves. From that vantage point, he could see the entire clearing with minimal difficulty, but wasn't likely to be spotted by his bleary-eyed Lieutenant.

Matsumoto, for her part, stopped at the edge of the path where it entered the clearing and knelt down in front of a cairn of rocks, carefully extracting... lanterns?

Yes, Hitsugaya realized, lanterns. Four of them, to be more exact, all of which she lit with a careful kidou burst - a _very_ careful kidou burst, given how intoxicated she still must have been and how little force was actually required to light a well-filled storm lantern.

Without a word exchanged between them, the girl calmly picked up two of the now-burning lanterns, and crossed the clearing to place them carefully on a pair of small boulders, spaced at roughly equal distances across the side of the clearing. Matsumoto did the same with the other pair of lanterns, and between the four of them, the small clearing proved to be quite well-lit.

If you had asked Hitsugaya his predominant emotion at that point, the answer would have been 'confusion.' For one thing, Matsumoto - who was quite happy to drown herself and anything resembling her responsibilities in the office under a flood of rice wine during the day - was in a field in Rukongai in damn near the middle of the night, dutifully attending to what appeared to be a standing appointment with the thin-faced girl.

His confusion doubled, however, when Matsumoto crossed to a gnarled tree that sat like a brooding vulture over the livelier brambles ringing the clearing. Without hesitating, she slid one hand into the twisted hollow at the center of the tree, then carefully withdrew... a bokken?

Blinking in utter disbelief, Hitsugaya watched as a the wooden blade was tossed to the girl - she caught it single-handed - and a second one extracted from the center of the twisted tree.

Weapon steady in her hand, Matsumoto turned, strode steadily back to the center of the clearing, and stopped facing the girl, raising her blade in a kendo salute. The gesture was returned automatically, thin hands tightening on the wrapped wooden hilt.

"Defend," Matsumoto said simply, and lunged forward.

Eyes narrowing, Hitsugaya watched the blades collide.

* * *

At ten-thirty the next morning, Hitsugaya raised his head at the sound of the office door sliding open, his mouth thinning as his Lieutenant tried to slip in without being noticed. Inconspicuous, however, she was not, particularly when entering her workplace two and a half hours late.

"_Matsumoto_!"

"Yeek!" Jumping enough to risk accidental exposure, she clamped both arms over her chest, hands at her shoulders and elbows pressed against her sides. "Captain, don't scare me like that!"

"How would you like me to scare you, Matsumoto?" came the return growl, and she paused, blinking, unsure whether her Captain was joking or not.

Setting his brush down, Hitsugaya shoved the paper he'd been working on aside and leveled his fiercest glare on the woman. "Matsumoto, tell me, in your own words, what you did while you were on duty yesterday."

"While I was... on duty? Why do you ask, Captain?"

"An exemplary Lieutenant, Matsumoto, will arrive on time to their office, complete their paperwork and assigned duties in good order, and return to their own quarters or an appropriate establishment to relax once off-duty."

That earned him a few blinks of china-doll eyes, and what appeared to be an utter lack of comprehension of the point he was trying to make. Scowling, he jabbed a finger at the woman as he spoke. "You, Matsumoto, are the farthest thing from an exemplary Lieutenant ever discovered by the Gotei. You arrived two hours late, did none of your assigned tasks, and spent the entire workday dumping sake down your throat!"

Blue eyes widened, blinked again, and he could see the last remnants of a hangover being burned from her frontal brain by the first delicate tendrils of alarm. That was for the best - the point had to be driven home with heavy strokes if it was to take root.

"Captain, I -"

He cut her off, his voice level and cold. "Matsumoto, you are a drunkard and an escapist. Since you took the position, your performance as a Lieutenant has been nothing short of abysmal, and it is getting worse. To date, the only effective task in this office you have managed is that of a _paperweight_."

When Matsumoto jerked back a half-step, shock opening her mouth, he steeled himself and struck for the kill. "If you plan to continue teaching kendo to Rukongai brats, you are expected to finish your assigned duties first."

The blow hit home.

Her face going chalk-white, Matsumoto staggered backwards, colliding with her desk and scattering a pile of papers from the top of it. The hiss of falling parchment didn't cover the sudden, panicked gasping of her breath.

"You - how?" came the trembling whisper, as long fingers twisted frantically against the edge of the desktop, manicured nails bending and finally cracking as they tore into the wood.

"As your Captain, I have a right to investigate any aspect of my subordinate's personal lives that I believe is interfering with the fulfillment of their duties," he answered, voice arctic as he stared at her.

"You... followed me?"

Yesterday, when she'd asked if he had been making fun of her, his only thought was how painful it was to see his Lieutenant in the state she'd been in; angry with the world, numbed with alcohol and cynicism.

Today, he realized that the intoxicated numbness she'd been inflicting on herself was nothing compared to this - the pain of watching one of the most perpetually optimistic, unfailingly cheerful people he knew breaking down in front of him, fear and pain clouding eyes that never ceased to smile.

She'd smiled for Kira's sake, when he came to her, broken after Gin's betrayal. She'd smiled for Shuuhei and Komamura, when they'd twice mourned together for the loss of Tousen. She'd smiled for Hinamori, as the girl mustered the courage to leave her old life and the pain of Aizen's betrayals behind, walking away from her childhood friend for the last time. She'd even smiled for Toushirou himself; when she'd first found him, nearly freezing his grandmother to death with his uncontrolled reiatsu. When he'd joined the Academy and turned the record-books on their ear, just as Gin had done a few decades before, by graduating in under a year. (Hitsugaya, however, had managed it with full honors and attained a seated position upon graduating, something Gin had literally had to kill for.) She'd kept smiling for Hitsugaya as he won his way up through the ranks, accepted command of the Tenth, and became the most notoriously irritable Captain in the Gotei.

Through it all, Matsumoto smiled, gentle hands ready to catch her friends when they fell, and support them as they found their feet again.

For all of them, she'd smiled.

Last night, an hour into the practice bouts, the thin girl had managed to knock Matsumoto's blade from her hand and halfway across the clearing, and Matsumoto had laughed in sheer joy. It was, he realized now, probably the first time he'd ever heard such an unforced, untainted sound from her.

Locking his own eyes on Matsumoto's terrified ones, he asked quietly, "Who is she, Matsumoto?"

Pale hands lost their grip on the edge of the desk, knees buckling under the weight of fear that pressed upon her shoulders. Gracelessly, Matsumoto allowed herself to fall, crumpling to her knees before her desk, head hanging as tears began to well in her eyes. The answer, torn from her throat on a trembling whisper, hung heavy on the air before her.

"She's my daughter."

* * *

_The crack of wooden swords echoed again, slim feet - one set bare, the other still clad in waraji and tabi socks, growing damp with the early dew - dancing through the grass to the rhythm of the blows. Another flurry of cracks, blows and blocks and parries, and a quick, breathless voice calls 'Hold!'_

_The heavier bokken draws back, falls motionless against a round shoulder, and Matsumoto waits patiently while the girl she matches unties the black scarf that is perpetually bound over her hair. _

_The thin tendrils that have escaped the braid to fall, rebellious, around her face, are soaked with sweat, but barely darkened from their natural white-blond shade._

_

* * *

_

"Your..." For a moment, Hitsugaya can't find his breath. "Your _daughter_?"

When Matsumoto simply nods, hair curtaining her anguished face, he sits silently for a moment, letting the information settle in his mind.

When it does, he very quietly gets up from his seat, retrieves a pitcher of drinking water and a glass from a corner of the bookshelf. The sound of liquid pouring lifts Matsumoto's head from sheer curiosity; surprise sends her cross-eyed when the glass is abruptly thrust under her nose.

"Drink," comes the gruff demand, and she does so, only partly because her mouth is still dry and horrid-tasting from last night's drinking. When the glass is empty, he takes it back without a word, sets it on the table next to the couch, and comes back to hook a hand under her arm. "Come on," he orders softly, pulling her gently to her feet, and she allows herself to be guided to the sofa. She sits as he orders, staring helplessly at the table and the empty glass on it as her Captain vanishes again.

She's more surprised than she should be when he reappears a few seconds later, carrying the water pitcher and a second glass.

"All right, Matsumoto," he says softly, filling both glasses before he sits down beside her. "Tell me."

Picking the glass up, she stares down at the water filling it, and almost smiles as she begins.

"Gin and I were still children when he left Rukongai for the Academy," Matsumoto began, sipping slowly at her glass. "He didn't tell me he was leaving, but then, he never did. I'd come to half-expect him to up and vanish without warning, but I always expected him to come back..." Sighing, she lowered the glass, staring down at the water trembling within. "I guess I should have known, that time. It was the first time we'd ever..."

When the sentence trailed to silence, Hitsugaya prodded her with a soft 'Ever _what_, Matsumoto?'

The arched eyebrow that answered him left a mortified blush tracing across his cheeks. After a long moment spent sputtering incoherent syllables, the young Captain fell silent, shook his head and gestured for her to continue.

"It took almost three months before the rumors of a silver-haired genius sweeping the Shinigami Academy reached back to my District," she explained. "By that time, though, I knew that... well, the expression 'it only takes once' is right, anyway," she grimaced, waving one hand towards her midsection. Sighing softly, Matsumoto slumped against the back of the couch, letting her head fall backwards. "I stayed a few years, long enough to make sure she could take care of herself. And then I left her with Rei-obaa-san, and followed Gin."

Little wonder that the words sounded bitter as she spoke them. She'd left her own child in order to follow the man who had forever been leaving her behind.

"I've been going back as often as I can ever since, trying to spend time with her, make her believe that I love her." The words were sighed, weary under the weight of decades worth of guilt and pain. "I was actually coming back from visiting her when I first ran into you, Captain. I suppose it's true what they say about Fate being a fickle mistress, eh?"

"Quite," Hitsugaya answered dryly, frowning at the table. Silence rang for a long moment before he spoke again. "You've been teaching her the Shinigami arts."

There was no question in the words, but Matsumoto nodded anyway, pushing herself up off the back of the couch to meet his eyes again. "Yes. She's not a prodigy, not like Gin or yourself, Captain... although perhaps that's for the best," she added, chuckling weakly.

"It might be some cause for concern among the upper echelons if she were," he admitted, frown lightening ever-so-slightly. "But why isn't she in the Academy already? Certainly she's of age, and I know she has the reiatsu potential to be admitted. With you guiding her combat skills, she should have no problem gaining entry."

"The problem is what it always is for Rukon children," Matsumoto answered, sighing into her cup. "Money. I don't know if you're aware, Captain - you wouldn't have had to deal with it, given your reiatsu levels when I first found you - but scholarships to Rukongai students are very limited. Although the Academy will always make arrangements for students of exceptional potential, like you, the average Rukon children have to compete with the children of low nobility and other Seireitei families for the right to enter with monetary aide. Sometimes a sponsor will pick up the expenses of a child's schooling, but the Academy itself will only assign scholarships to those they consider exemplary. And as limited as the scholarships are..."

"Let me guess. Not enough funds for all of the Rukon brats to be put through?"

"Exactly," sighed Matsumoto. "And the stipend I send Rei every month means I can't save the funds for Academy tuition."

"I see," Hitsugaya answered, nodding faintly as he toyed with the condensation on his water glass. After a moment of thought, he asked softly, "Who else knows about your daughter?"

The answer was as swift as it was surprising; "Nobody. You are the only person in the Gotei who knows of her existence."

White eyebrows shot upwards, creasing the pale forehead. "You never told Ichimaru?"

"What was I supposed to say to him?" she snapped back, eyes flashing as she slammed her glass down on the table. " 'Oh, by the way, Gin, you got me pregnant the first time we slept together, let me introduce you to our daughter'?"

Hitsugaya grimaced mildly. Put like that, it did sound rather... "The subject never came up during... later meetings?"

A snort answered him. "Gin didn't waste a great deal of time thinking about the consequences of our meetings, Captain. I don't think they mattered enough for him to care."

"That's unfortunate," Hitsugaya replied, standing up slowly and collecting both glasses and the pitcher. When Matsumoto hadn't moved from the couch after her Captain had returned to his desk and restarted his paperwork, a frigid glare was leveled in her direction. "Matsumoto..."

"Eh?"

"I will not continue to tolerate a Lieutenant who is good for nothing more than a paperweight, Matsumoto. Regardless of your personal history, you are expected to complete your work," he added, jabbing his brush at her laden desk.

Her face went white, before a narrow flush of angry red crept across her cheeks. "I just trusted you with something I've never told anyone, and you -"

Clenching his teeth on the apologies he wanted to make, the sympathy he wanted to give her, he forced his voice to its notorious parade-ground bark. "_Get to work, Matsumoto!_"

Fists clenched and eyes glittering, she pushed herself up from the couch, fury and betrayal warring across her features. For one moment she stood, tears of hurt flooding her eyes as she glared at him, before his silent stare sent her spinning around, storming back to her desk.

Bending his head over his own work, Hitsugaya tried to ignore the silent flow of tears down Matsumoto's cheeks.

* * *

"You may break for lunch," he said flatly, as the shadow of the sundial edged around to one o'clock. "I will expect you back in no more than an hour."

It was the first either of them had spoken since he'd ordered her to her work two hours before; she'd been making her way steadily through the stack of papers on her desk, eyes diamond-hard and still heavy with tears.

The only acknowledgement she gave his words was to carefully cap her ink and rinse and set aside her brush, shuffle her completed papers into order, push back from her desk, and leave without a word.

Closing his eyes, Hitsugaya leaned back in his chair, trailing her reiatsu signature until she was well out of the barracks and headed deeper into Seireitei, looking for a place for lunch. Oftentimes, she would simply meander her way over to the Eighth, but Kyouraku was absent today, headed into the Living World for Rukia's wedding, and even Matsumoto would not stoop to raiding the man's wine cellar when he was not present to help.

When it was reasonably certain that Matsumoto wouldn't make an abrupt return to the office, Hitsugaya quietly drew out a sheaf of papers he'd been working on earlier in the morning and added a few notes to it. Once the ink had dried, crossed the room to tuck the papers under the much-diminished stack on the corner of his Lieutenant's desk, then ventured off to the Division's Mess to see what was available for his own lunch.

* * *

Matsumoto returned as quietly as she'd left, resuming her seat and her work without a word. The pile of papers shrank quickly under her still-furious attentions, and Hitsugaya kept his gaze steadily on his own work, perfectly aware that he'd know when she reached the last set of forms.

It was nearly evening by the time she did so, but he heard the soft scrape of the staple in the papers against the wood of her desk, the pause as she tried to equate the forms in her hand with standard Division paperwork, and the sharply indrawn breath as she realized that they were nothing of the sort.

"Captain -"

"Hm?" he answered mildly, raising his head from the crossword he'd resorted to an hour ago, waiting for her to finish.

"Captain, these -" The sheaf of papers, small boxes filled with Hitsugaya's tight, neat writing, were brandished by a shaking hand. "When did you - ?"

"First thing this morning, before you came in," he answered calmly, and watched as Matsumoto's eyes widened to a degree he wouldn't have believed possible.

The Shinigami Academy admission forms, nearly complete, were placed carefully, almost reverently, back on the desk. In the box next to 'Sponsor,' the name 'Hitsugaya Toushirou' was written in clear, bold strokes. Staring down at the papers, Matsumoto laughed, a breathy exhalation with more than a hint of tears behind it. "Captain, you... I spent all morning hating you," she laughed, the faintest shade of hysteria coloring the words. "Why did you have to trick me like that?"

"By putting it at the bottom of your stack, you mean? If I'd left it at the top, the remainder of your paperwork would have been left unfinished," he answered dryly, the corners of his mouth twitching upward when she blushed dully.

"You will find, however, that those forms are almost completed," he added softly. "All that's left to be filled out is her name."

When Matsumoto shot him a startled look, he shrugged slightly. "You never mentioned it."

"I didn't, did I?" she laughed weakly, shaking her head and swiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands. "It's Kin. Matsumoto Kin."

* * *

O

* * *

Translation Notes: The name Kin is a multi-layered pun. Phonetically, it is similar to her father's name, Gin (meaning: silver), and the name Kin means 'gold,' a reference to her hair.

Yes, I will be introducing more OC's through the course of this story, as well as bringing back a few familiar faces. Next chapter, we'll return to Karakura, peek in on Ichigo and Rukia's wedding again, and see how the rest of the gang is doing.

Reviews are love!


	3. Poetry and Song

Hey, everyone! *SO* sorry about the delay getting this chapter posted - this past week has been mildly insane, I have been getting nowhere near enough sleep and was too braindead to write for several days. Hope the chapter is worth the extra wait!

Warnings: Much of this chapter was typed either at absurd hours of the morning or while I was recovering from being up until absurd hours of the morning, so mind the crack. Or rather, don't mind the crack, please! Also, very, _very_ slight and humorously intended reference to bdsm.

Translator's Notes: The ceremony featured in this chapter, is, as Byakuya and Renji's was, based on a traditional Shinto ceremony, but has been altered to suit my own purposes. The vows that Ichigo and Rukia recite are of my own mind. For those of you wishing to see an actual sansankudo ceremony, search 'sansankudo' on YouTube, there are a couple of good vids.

Aka-pine: Lit. 'Red Pineapple.' A nickname that Renji has picked up due to his old spiky ponytail. Jinta often goads him with it, much to Renji's annoyance, but Renji also occasionally wears a tee-shirt reading 'Red Pineapple' that was supposedly a gag gift from Ichigo.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 3: Poetry and Song

* * *

"This place is a madhouse."

"Ichigo, you've put Yoroichi-dono, my brother, and your father under one roof. What did you expect?" Rukia whispered back to him, amusement lighting her eyes.

But he was, unfortunately, quite right. Isshin and Urahara were still arguing over something in a far corner of the room, while Yoroichi and Shinji stood by to goad the pair on whenever they stopped for breath, looking like they might have appreciated popcorn to go with the show. Kyouraku was 'inspecting' the sake that was supposed to be served to the guests during the ceremony while Kiego lurked nearby, looking as though he'd like to join the man but was too intimidated to do so. Ukitake and Mizuiro, by contrast, were standing on the opposite side in the room, deep in a cheerful discussion. Tatsuki, Karin and Nanao were slumped in their seats, all looking quite bored and trying very hard to ignore Mashiro, who seemed to be telling knock-knock jokes but forgetting most of the punchlines. Shuuhei and Kira had been joined in their corner by Kensei and Gin - the latter of whom was taking a break from his drink-serving duties - and the four of them were chatting amiably.

Yuzu, Orihime, Chad, and Ishida were nowhere to be seen; probably waiting for the general chaos of the room to diminish before they reappeared. Byakuya and Renji were likewise missing, but Ichigo thought it was probably best not to inquire to closely as to their current location, or activity.

Ichigo only sighed in response, reaching down to catch one of Rukia's hands in his.

"Ugh, your hands are sweaty," she hissed at him, and received one of Ichigo's trademark scowls in response. The expression was becoming more and more rare nowadays; the return to his old default meant that he was probably much more nervous than he was trying to let on.

Then again, what man wasn't nervous before his own wedding? Even _Byakuya_ had been terrified! Not, of course, that he had admitted it at the time - it had been only a few weeks ago, as Rukia and her brothers discussed her upcoming ceremony over dinner at the manor, that he'd said anything at all.

* * *

"_It is normal to be uneasy before such a monumental event," he'd said calmly, his face inscrutable over his teacup. "Do not believe that your fear represents an ill decision; it is merely the knowledge that your life will be changing."_

_Renji laughed softly, teeth flashing as he grinned at his partner. "Hell, it was a dream come true for me, an' I almost had a heart attack six times. Gettin' married is probably the scariest thing anyone can ever do."_

_Rukia huffed at him, but Byakuya shook his head slightly. "Do not dismiss his words, Rukia. Even though I knew in my heart and soul I was making the right decision in binding Renji to me, I cannot recall a time when I have been more afraid than when I knelt for our sansankudo to be poured." He paused, smiling slightly at the memory. "Renji's kiss reminded me why I had fought for our joining; marriage is a ceremony that binds together to halves of a whole. He and I were to become one another's strength."_

_There was a moment of shocked silence before Renji leaned across the table, seized the front of Byakuya's yukata in his hand, and pulled the older man into a bone-melting kiss._

"_Poet," Renji laughingly accused when they parted, and Byakuya's lips quirked at the accusation, a smile shining in his lavender eyes. _

"_Love is poetry and passion, song," he quipped back, and Renji laughed, pulling the man he loved into another kiss._

_And Rukia watched them, hoping with all her heart that some day, she and Ichigo could love one another that much._

_

* * *

_

"It's okay to be afraid," she whispered, and Ichigo's hand jerked in hers, startled.

"What?" His eyes were wide as he looked down at her, and Rukia stared up at him, memories overwhelming her as she looked into those flame-brown eyes. She recalled them full of indignant fury, the first night they'd met, when she had stepped through his wall seeking a Hollow, filled with pain-laced determination not an hour later, as he willingly impaled himself on her Zanpakutou, taking her powers into himself and knocking down the next domino in the line that left its effects rippling through the Three Worlds.

Weeks later, his eyes had smiled down at her as the Soukyoku burned behind him, and Rukia thought she might have lost her heart to him in that moment. She'd lost it again and again, countless times over the following months, and finally given up trying to take it back the moment she woke up in the Fourth Division, the sand of Hueco Mundo still gritty in her hair, and seen Ichigo, bruised and bloodied but _alive_, standing at the doorway of her room, victorious at last.

"I said, it's okay to be afraid," she repeated, squeezing his hand gently. "Nii-sama... how did he put it? 'Marriage is a ceremony to join together two halves of a whole, so they may become each other's strength.' "

"Your brother said _that_?" Ichigo murmured back, incredulous, and Rukia nodded, smiling.

"He also said that he can't remember a time that he's been more afraid than when he and Renji knelt for their sansankudo to be poured."

"Sounds about right," Ichigo answered, exhaling a slow sigh. "Dammit... I was less scared going into battle against Aizen!"

Giggling, Rukia bumped her shoulder affectionately against his arm. "Of course you were - the worst that could have done was kill you. Dying's easy, Ichigo. It takes a good man to die for his cause, but a great man to _live_ for it." Dark-amber eyes widened farther, staring down at her, and Rukia smiled up at him, feeling the first traces of tears in her eyes. "You are a great man, Ichigo."

"I -"

A politely pointed cough jerked their attention to the door in front of them; Urahara stood in the doorway, smiling indulgently at the pair. Behind him, their friends and family waited, so many different people gathered together to bear witness to their happiness.

"Everyone's waiting for you, Kuchiki-san, Kurosaki-san," Urahara said gently, and Ichigo nodded, a slow smile appearing as he squeezed Rukia's hand gently with his own.

"We're ready."

* * *

The last of the sake burned gently down Ichigo's throat.

Closing his eyes, he exhaled slowly before turning to place the third cup in Rukia's delicate hands. She accepted it easily, a small but glowing smile on her face as she turned forward again, extending the cup to be filled.

Across the table, Shihoin Yoroichi smiled at them both, the unearthly gold of her eyes made more brilliant by the embroidery of her kimono, and poured the final three sips of sake into the silver cup with flawlessly graceful movements.

There was no hesitation as Rukia drank, her hands steady on the silver cup. When the last drop had been drained from it, she handed the cup back to Yoroichi, who bowed to them both and deftly restacked the sansankudo set before moving it aside.

As she did so, Ichigo awkwardly twisted around, taking Rukia's hand carefully in his own. "Kuchiki Rukia," he began, "I do so swear..." a pause, a frown. "I do so swear... to remember my vows..."

A low ripple of laughter went through the guests at that; Ichigo had only briefly rehearsed the ceremonial vows of a Shinigami marriage, and Renji in particular had been very vocal in his opinion that Ichigo should have spent a bit more time on practicing them.

Smiling gently, Rukia leaned upwards to press a tiny kiss against the tip of his nose, just as Renji had done for Byakuya two years before. Surprise widened Ichigo's eyes for a split-second, before the tight muscles of his shoulders relaxed and the tension fled his face. Smiling down at Rukia, he cleared his throat and began again.

"Kuchiki Rukia, I, Kurosaki Ichigo, do so swear to give to you the strength of my arm, the sharpness of my blade, and the protection of my power. I swear to be honorable and faithful to you, my wife, and stand beside you in the battles we shall face. Your joy shall be my joy, your sorrows my sorrows, your comrades my comrades, and your enemies my enemies. This I do vow to you."

Several people applauded; Ichigo exhaled a sigh of relief and threw a dirty look over his shoulder at them before turning back to Rukia.

"I can't promise that it will always be easy," he said gently, squeezing her hand. "I know we'll argue, and there will be enemies for us to face, battles to fight, and blood to shed. But I can promise that I will do the best I can to be a good husband to you, Rukia." Lifting her hand, he pressed it gently to his chest, over the rapid thrum of his heart. "I don't remember when I started loving you, but I don't think I'll ever stop. And that, I swear to you."

Feeling her eyes mist, Rukia quickly sniffed, waving off Ichigo's sudden alarm at her tears. "Don't look so worried, you idiot, I just wasn't expecting you to be so..."

"Sappy?" Ichigo whispered back, keeping their conversation out of the too-eager ears of their audience.

"_Wonderful_," Rukia corrected, shaking Renji's handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbing at her eyes. When she had composed herself, she carefully freed her hand from Ichigo's grasp before taking one of his own broad, callused hands between both of her own, gazing into his eyes as she recited her vows.

"Kurosaki Ichigo, I, Kuchiki Rukia, do so swear to give to you the strength of my arm, the sharpness of my blade, and the protection of my power. I swear to be honorable and faithful to you, my husband, and stand beside you in the battles we shall face. Your joy shall be my joy, your sorrows my sorrows, your comrades my comrades, and your enemies my enemies. This I do vow to you."

Pausing, she let a faint smile drift over her face before adding, "I can't promise I'll be a perfect wife. I'm not obedient or docile, and I'm sure there will be days where we'll hate each other as much as we love each other, but I will always do my best to do well by you. I'll stand beside you when you fight, patch you up when you fall, and when you get depressed, I'll kick you in the head until you stop moping."

Several people laughed at that, knowing full well that she was being entirely serious in that oath.

"We'll be good together, Ichigo," she grinned. "This, I swear to you."

Nodding faintly, Ichigo stared down at her, feeling a sense of awe sweep over him as he looked down at his wife. _His wife_! Marriage wasn't something he had ever imagined, before she had burst into his office that day and declared without preamble that they were going to be married. And now...

"You're supposed to kiss her, moron," Shinji hissed from his seat.

Not even bothering to throw a scowl at him, Ichigo did.

* * *

The reception was in full swing when Uryuu carefully slipped through the outside doors of the Shoten, following the familiar energy that had been pressing on his senses throughout the entire ceremony. He found her on the back porch of the shop, knees drawn up to her chest as silent sobs shook her body.

Even from behind, he knew that he would see tear tracks gleaming on her cheeks.

Without speaking, he sat down next to her, their shoulders not quite touching, and waited while she hiccuped herself back to something like composure.

"You must think I'm a terrible person," she whispered finally, moving to wipe her eyes on her sleeve. Ishida quickly intervened with a handkerchief.

"Of course not!" he protested, horrified by the very thought. "Why on Earth would I?"

"If you love someone, you're supposed to want them happy," came the broken whisper. "But here I am, crying because he's marrying someone else."

Another sob tore itself free of the pale throat, and Ishida felt his heart break a little more.

"I'm selfish... terribly selfish," she whispered again, and Uryuu surrendered propriety to put an arm around her quaking shoulders.

"You're not selfish," he murmured softly, rubbing tentatively at the soft curve of her shoulder beneath his hand. "You just watched your first love marry someone else - anyone in your situation would cry. It doesn't mean you're selfish, or a bad person."

A sniff, and tear-choked eyes raised to look at him. "Would you?"

Uryuu blinked slightly, not certain of the question. "Would I... what?"

"Cry," she answered as she dropped her head again, so softly he barely heard it. "If you watched the person you loved marry someone else."

Startled, Uryuu stared down at the woman before him, beautiful even in her tears, and tried to imagine her marrying someone else. A sharp jab of pain went through his heart at the mere thought, and he clenched his teeth against it. There was no question in his mind; Quincy pride or no, if he had to watch this woman give herself to someone else, he would break down like a child.

He'd taken too long to answer, though; giving an embarrassed laugh, she waved her hands sheepishly before her. "Not that Ishida-kun has an unrequited love or something like that - I mean, that only happens to silly girls like me, and - mmph?"

Going slightly cross-eyed, she attempted to peer down at the two pale fingers that had settled themselves against her lips.

"I would," he answered her quietly, trying to ignore the way his heart raced in his chest. He hadn't been this terrified in as long as he could remember - not even when he thought he was facing death at the hands of a mad Arrancar in the sands of Hueco Mundo. The possibility of having his heart _literally_ torn from his body was, absurdly, nowhere near as intimidating as having it _figuratively_ done so.

Behind his fingers, she made a faint noise of inquiry at the back of her throat, making no attempt to dislodge his hand.

"I... I would cry if I watched the one I loved marry someone else," he elaborated uneasily, and watched the surprise flare in her eyes before sadness quickly replaced it. Feeling awkward, he slowly removed his fingers from her mouth, freeing her to speak again.

"I, uhm..." Pale, delicate fingers bunched in the skirt of the sunset-painted kimono, oranges and pinks and purples wrinkling against twilight-blue. "Ishida-kun likes... somebody?"

"I do," he answered gravely, his eyes fixed steadily on her pale, tearstained, beautiful face. She averted her eyes from his stare, turning her gaze to the ground and swallowing, clearly trying not to cry again.

"She is the kind of person I cannot help but love," Ishida said quietly, his heart beating so fast within his chest that it surely sounded like the flutter of a hummingbird's wings. "She is very beautiful, with an amazingly good heart. She's sweet and funny and kind, and much smarter than people realize, and... she's incredibly brave," he finished, his voice barely above a whisper. "She was willing to give up everything for the hope of protecting her friends. She was always willing to put her heart out for those she felt for, whether or not they returned the feelings. She's really much braver than I am," he added with a sigh. "I can face down an army of rampaging Hollow without blinking, but I could never find the nerve to tell her how I feel..."

Delicate as the brush of a butterfly's wing, his fingers brushed over her temple, barely touching the glittering pins in her hair, gliding down her cheek to settle themselves beneath her chin, where they carefully lifted her head to meet his gaze.

"Until now," he finished, and watched her eyes go wide in surprise.

Slipping carefully off the step, he dropped to one knee before her on the dusty ground, nervously taking her hand in his own, staring at the delicate strength of her fingers as he spoke. "I know... I know that I'm a poor substitute for Kurosaki," he admitted softly. "I can't compare with his strength or his looks or his sheer power, but I have loved you for more years than you know, and I will do anything in my power to prove it to you if you ask. I will throw down my very life to defend you, because without you, my life would be empty."

Looking up into wide silver eyes, he whispered the words that had been only a dream for so long. "I... want to ask you to marry me, Orihime."

Astonishment spread across her face; a long moment passed in stunned silence. Just as Ishida felt his hopes beginning to crumble and wither into dust, she gave a soft gasp and hurled herself off the step into his arms, tears of joy wetting his collar as she whispered her acceptance against his throat.

* * *

"Where have you been?"

It was, really, a much more tactful question than '_Why has Orihime been crying_?' or '_What the Hell have you two been doing_?', neither of which would have surprised Uryuu, coming out of Tatsuki's mouth. The girl frankly looked mad enough to spit nails. It wasn't surprising; Arisawa was incredibly protective of their group's Princess. Ordinarily, Ishida appreciated the sentiment, but at the moment, it bordered on intrusive.

"Orihime-san needed some air," Uryuu answered, shoving his glasses up his nose, at the same moment that Orihime answered cheerfully, "Oh, Uryuu-kun just needed to ask me something is all!"

Tatsuki raised her eyebrows in silence, letting her disbelieving expression speak for her. Uryuu grimaced and pushed his glasses up his nose again, peering at the design on her kimono - intricate bronze and gold dragons twining across the burnt-umber silk - before gently squeezing the delicate hand still nestled in his own, fingers interlacing with his. "It's somewhat personal, Arisawa-san..."

"Arisawa-san," the dark-haired girl snorted in disgust, shaking her head. "As if we haven't spent the past how many months beating the crap out of each other in the training room, Uryuu." Ignoring his ingrained bristle at the casual familiarity, Tatsuki turned her gaze to the girl next to him. "What was it he asked you, Orihime?"

"Really, Arisawa, it's not -"

"Go ahead and spill it, Orihime," Rukia piped up from a few feet away, as she and Ichigo stepped off the dance floor for a short break. Both of them looked deliriously happy - the expression was bizarre on Ichigo's face - and their eyes were bright with happiness and curiosity. "There shouldn't be secrets among friends."

"If only," Uryuu sighed, but the remark went entirely unnoticed.

Orihime, meanwhile, shook her head wildly, waving her free hand sheepishly in front of her. "No, no, I can't say, really. Today is for the two of you, Kuchiki-san, Kurosaki-kun, and it would be very rude of me to take away the attention from you, and I'm being quite rude now, aren't I?" A nervous giggle chased the sentence, and Ichigo and Rukia both cast fond smiles at the girl.

"Orihime," Rukia interrupted gently, stepping forward and settling her hands on Orihime's shoulders, "you are part of our family. If you have something you need to tell us, then just tell us."

"I don't..." Nervous fingers bunched the skirt of her kimono again - if Uryuu had not still been holding one of her hands, she would no doubt have been wringing them together - "I don't want to take away from your day. This is about the two of you and your love for each other," she whispered softly, ducking her head. Rukia opened her mouth to respond, but, much to her surprise, Ichigo reached past her, one callus-roughened hand slipping under Orihime's chin to tilt her head back up.

"Hey," Ichigo chided lightly. "You're wrong. Today's not about just Rukia and me - it's about family. And you're part of our family, so spill it. What's the matter?"

It would have been a genuinely touching moment if Isshin had not chosen that precise moment to tackle Ichigo, exclaiming how wonderfully considerate a man his son had grown up to be, and Ichigo proved precisely how considerate he was by kicking his father in the stomach rather than the face, sending the man reeling backwards to fall over a chair.

"Oh, for the love of the goddesses, act your age, Isshin!" Ukitake snapped, getting a hand under Isshin's arm and hauling him into a sitting position with Kyouraku's help. Kyouraku, for his part, snickered and toasted Ichigo with his glass before half-turning and dumping the contents of said glass down Isshin's throat.

"It's sad," Ichigo remarked to nobody in particular, "when I'm the _normal_ man of the family."

There wasn't much to be said to that, really, so Tatsuki merely shook her head and prodded Orihime in the shoulder.

"Oy, 'hime. What did Arrow-boy ask you?"

"I beg your pardon?" Uryuu sputtered, but Rukia had jumped in again, nodding enthusiastically.

"Yes, tell us, Orihime! If it's good news, we'll all share your happiness with you, and if it's bad news, we can - what's this?" she asked, curious, catching Orihime's left wrist and raising the hand to eye-level. Ishida had been holding her left hand up until Isshin had tackled Ichigo; he'd released it in favor of grasping her shoulders instead, ready to push the girl behind him if necessary.

"Ah, well, that's... kind of what I was going to not tell you just yet," Orihime answered, blushing brilliantly, as everyone crowded around to get a better look. Suppressing a sigh, Uryuu pushed forward and raised his own left hand next to Orihime's.

He hadn't been sure what possessed him to slip the three small spools of metallic thread into his pocket when he dressed for the wedding earlier. Now, as the light glimmered off the woven strands of platinum, silver, and white-gold, he understood Fate's odd nudges of prescience. Weaving was not the greatest of his talents, but his fingers had flown through crafting the thin, intricate bands that were fastened around the base of his and Orihime's left ring fingers.

"Ishida-kun and I are getting married!"

* * *

There was a moment of utter, astonished silence throughout the entire room.

It was, of course, Isshin who broke it, snickering loudly as he stood up, dusting off his suit pants. "Ryuuken will be thrilled," he chortled. "Now he'll really wish he'd come. He can't deny that he's part of the family now!"

"An' you don' think invitin' a Quincy t' a Shinigami weddin' wasn' in _slightly_ bad form?" Gin asked dryly as he swept by with the drinks tray again, pausing long enough to hand off an entire bottle of sake to Kyouraku.

Isshin managed to sputter a few more repetitions of 'family!' before Kyouraku drained the bottle in four fast swallows and brought it down on the back of Isshin's head.

"Still harboring a bit of a grudge over his disappearing act, Shunsui?" Yoroichi drawled, arms folded across her chest as she peered at Isshin, who was clutching his abused skull and swearing softly under his breath.

"It's quite understandable, really," Ukitake answered, delicately plucking a cup of steaming mint tea from Gin's tray. "When someone you've been that close to for so many years simply vanishes without a word, you certainly expect them to be dead. If Kyouraku did such a thing to me, I would likely be rather annoyed as well."

"Remind me not to get on Ukitake's bad side," Hisagi stage-whispered to Kira, and a low wave of laughter broke the awkward tension of the moment.

Smirking, Rukia set two fingers under her new husband's jaw and pushed, shutting his mouth with a snap. "You'll catch flies that way, dumbass."

"I... you..." Shaking his head, Ichigo managed to scrape together enough of his faculties to point at Ishida and Orihime, before summing his general thoughts up into one eloquent inquiry. "_What_?"

"What do you mean, 'what'?" Uryuu shot back, shoving at his glasses again. "I proposed to Orihime and she accepted, what part of that is beyond your cognitive abilities?"

"It's just that... I dunno, you're always so... prissy and girly and shit, I guess I thought you were gay."

Dead silence reigned again, broken only by a few badly-squelched giggles from odd points in the room. Uryuu, unable to push his glasses further up his nose - the bottoms of the frames were already cutting into his cheekbones - arched his eyebrows instead.

" 'Prissy and girly and shit'? That's a rather narrow-minded assumption to make, Ichigo, given the company we're in... and particularly given that your brothers-in-law are standing directly behind you," he remarked coolly.

Blanching somewhat, Ichigo turned to look over his shoulder. True to Ishida's word, Renji and Byakuya were standing virtually within arm's reach. Byakuya limited his reaction to Ichigo's remark to merely raising an eyebrow, his silver-toned eyes cool. Renji, however, gave the younger Shinigami an expression that had too many teeth in it to really be called a smile.

Grimacing, Ichigo stepped backwards, away from the two. "If anyone needs me, I'll be at the refreshment table, extracting my foot from my mouth," he announced, the level calm of his voice belying the flaming blush on his face, and scuttled off across the room before they could respond.

He hadn't made it more than three steps before Renji lost control of himself, snorting a laugh loud enough to make Yuzu and Kiego jump before letting the snickers run freely.

"Shit, Ichigo, the look on your face..."

Back stiff, Ichigo stopped in his tracks, visibly bristling. "Shut up, Akapine!"

Renji's laughter snapped off like someone had flipped a switch, stormclouds boiling across his brow. "Who are you calling a pineapple, strawberry?"

"_Strawberry_?" Ichigo shouted back, and promptly leapt the distance between them, tackling Renji around the waist and carrying them both to the floor. Byakuya and Rukia sidestepped the flailing tangle of limbs with equal grace and stood side-by-side, watching the hotheaded duo tumble back and forth on the floor for a moment before exchanging identical expressions of mingled exasperation and amusement.

Neither Renji nor Ichigo was particularly serious about the scuffle - it was, really, just a breakout born of high spirits and nerves, something that was guarunteed to happen in some form or another, given the number of rather high-strung personalities in the building.

Which did not, of course, excuse their behavior one bit in Rukia's mind. "Hey," she snapped, and when the pair didn't respond, she scowled and swung a kick that caught both of them a glancing blow across the tops of their heads. "HEY!"

"Shit!"

"Ow, Rukia!"

"When are you two going to grow up?" she demanded, shaking her head.

Simultaneously, the two men raised their hands, each pointing at the other. "He started it!"

"You _both_ started it," Rukia snapped, but fell silent as her brother stepped forward, hooking a hand under Renji's elbow and hauling the bigger man to his feet with no apparent effort.

"I apologize for Renji's part in the argument," Byakuya intoned calmly, silencing Renji's automatic protest with a single look. "I can assure you that he will be sufficiently... disciplined... upon returning to the house."

An expression of openmouthed disbelief on his face, Renji could only stare at his partner until the Kuchiki scion glanced back at him, mischief burning in the depths of his amethyst eyes.

Comprehension dawned, and Renji's garnet eyes deepened with the heat kindling within them. "Oh, you're gonna 'discipline' me, huh?" Renji murmured back, a slow grin curling his mouth as he shifted a little closer to the noble. "Punish me for bad behavior... _Taichou_?"

"Oh, I do _so_ not need to hear this," Ichigo groaned, rolling to his feet and heading rapidly towards the buffet table.

Byakuya smirked, Renji snickered, and Rukia had to stuff almost the entirety of her fist in her mouth before she could gain enough control over her laughter to follow her husband.

* * *

O

* * *

YES, I ship Ishihime. For those of you who do not, I apologize, but go and reread manga ch. 344, pg. 9, and ch. 347, pages 4 and 5. Yes, those three pages were all it took to turn me into a devout Ishihime shipper.

Sorry again for the delay on getting this one posted. Reviews are love!


	4. Paper and Stone

A/N: Hey, all, just one note before we get started.

A friend of mine and fellow author dropped me a note earlier this morning concerning something that had been bugging her about my last chapter. She was quite surprised by it and felt the comment was way off-base, even though I had only intended it humorously.

The remark in question was Ichigo's comment to Ishida: 'you're always so prissy and girly and shit, I guess I thought you were gay.'

The comment was not intended to seem homophobic or cruel; admittedly Ichigo was allowing stereotypes to rule his mind in that case, but his comments were intended as a mere statement of fact - Ishida's obsession with his clothes, his naturally uptight - or 'prissy' - attitude, and the fact that he hasn't demonstrated any overt interest in females within Ichigo's sight lead Ichigo to an erroneous conclusion - that his friend was gay. It's one he formed immediately after he and Ishida first met, before they were actually friends, and never reconsidered when their relationship changed.

The comment was not intended in any way to suggest that Ichigo was intolerant of Ishida's sexuality, no matter which orientation his friend was - the announcement of Ishida and Orihime's engagement merely caught him off-guard because he had never bothered to reassess his assumptions of Ishida's sexuality. He is not in any way unsupportive of Ishada and Orihime's relationship, nor would he be unsupportive if Uryuu had brought his boyfriend to the reception.

That is not to say that Ichigo wasn't being rather rude - he was - but he and Ishida have also been good friends for quite some time at this point, and Ichigo filters himself much less around his friends than he would his subordinates and other colleagues, simply because they know what to expect of him and are less likely to be surprised or offended.

I apologize if the comment came across as ill-intentioned or offensive, and can only plead diminished capacity due to lack of sleep.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter Four: Paper and Stone

* * *

Stifling a groan, Hisagi Shuuhei rolled over on his futon, blindly swinging out with one hand and fortuitously connecting with the clamoring alarm clock at his bedside. Not so fortuitously, the blow did not silence the infernal machine, merely toppled it to the floor where it continued to clang, now buzzing its way across the polished wooden floor as well.

Pressed against his back, Kira made a vague and unintelligible noise that Shuuhei assumed was in protest of the alarm, and Shuuhei sighed in exasperation as he hauled himself out of the warm embrace of his blankets and his lover, stretching one arm out enough to grab the offending piece of machinery.

Once it had been silenced, he set it back where it belonged and sat silently for a moment, only half-under the covers, and contemplating throwing his usual breakfast plans out the window in favor of crawling back under the blankets. He'd been up until either painfully late that night or more painfully early that morning, celebrating Ichigo and Rukia's wedding. Although he couldn't remember clearly, he had the feeling a drinking contest against Hirako Shinji and Kyouraku-taichou might have appeared at some point in the last twelve hours, which would go a long way towards explaining the pounding in his head.

It would not, however, go a long way towards explaining a fuzzy memory that Rukia had drunk the lot of them under the table. There was no way a girl that tiny could hold her alcohol that well. Not unless it had something to do with ice... did he remember ice?

"Ow," Kira said vaguely, his head still buried under the covers, and Shuuhei grunted in agreement.

"We should get up," Kira sighed, wriggling forward; Shuuhei glanced down to see the blond peering out from under the blanket, his face mournful. "We'll miss your breakfast otherwise."

"The hell with breakfast," Hisagi groaned, leaning back and letting himself slide down the small heap of pillows behind his back. "I'm not sure I could eat anyway." Closing his eyes, he contemplated dozing off again before deciding he was too awake to do so. And his head hurt too much.

"Was I imagining things, or did Rukia really drink ten other people including me, Renji, Shinji, and Kyouraku-taichou into a stupor last night?"

"You're not imagining things," Kira answered, squirming a little farther out from under the covers and shifting to rest his head against Shuuhei's chest. Automatically, one dark hand raised and began stroking over the pale blond hair. "I remember from my time in the Fourth... something to do with ice-type Zanpakutou makes their wielders more resistant to alcohol intoxication. Some forms of poisons, too, I think."

"Must be nice to have a Zanpakutou with fringe benefits," Shuuhei muttered, and, ignoring Kazeshini's litany of curses, slowly levered himself up and out of bed.

"Agreed," Kira sighed, and the pair of them headed for the washroom together, hoping to put a positive spin on the new day.

* * *

"Good morning, Captain! Oh, and Kira-taichou, this is a treat!" sparkled Yumichika, radiant as always in a soft lavender yukata with bands of azure embroidery at the cuffs and collar. He was seated in a perfect seiza on one of the many overstuffed floor pillows that occupied the living room of his quarters, a delicate bowl of rice in hand.

"Mornin' Yumi, Ikkaku," Shuuhei grinned back, one arm comfortably slung around Kira's shoulders. Both of them were still damp-haired from their earlier bath, and the faint blush it had put on Kira's cheeks hadn't quite faded.

It had been Shuuhei's idea, shortly after being promoted to Captain, that he and his Lieutenant would get together for breakfast every day. It was, in part, a decision made in reaction to his own Captain's defection; few days had gone by in the months following the War that he did not wonder if Tousen would still have betrayed them had he been closer to his Squad. Aside from that, it gave he and Yumichika plenty of time to go over their plans for the day, as well as discuss any events of the previous day that hadn't made it into reports.

The insistence on dining with his Lieutenant - and by extension, Ikkaku, who stayed in Yumichika's quarters every night - had resulted in a few awkward mornings before the three of them settled into a comfortable rhythm, one that Kira easily fell into on the not-infrequent occasion he joined them.

Now, every morning that was not following a graveyard-shift patrol or a major Hollow attack had an easy pattern to it. Of the three of them, Yumichika would awaken first, set out the breakfast that one of the aides would bring by every morning, then rattle Ikkaku awake and dump enough coffee down his throat for the Eleventh-divisioner to at least be able to feign coherency by the time Shuuhei stumbled his way in a few minutes later.

It might have been easier to have done all of this in Shuuhei's much-larger quarters, but Yumichika - of course - insisted on being in his own 'beautiful environment while enjoying the first meal of the new day.'

Once they'd eaten, Ikkaku would dress, kiss Yumichika goodbye, and make his way to the Eleventh; Kira, if he was in attendance, would perpetually beat him out the gate. Shuuhei, who washed and dressed before eating, would head to the office for an early start on the paperwork while Yumi tidied up and dressed, following his Captain to the office no more than a half-hour later.

When Hisagi arrived at his office that morning, though, his mind still idly drifting over an unusually pleasant hour spent in the company of his friends and lover, he was rather surprised to find someone already waiting for him.

"Captain Hitsugaya," he said, staring a bit blankly at the young prodigy sitting stiffly in one of the azure-upholstered wing chairs Yumichika had insisted on. "Can I help you?"

"I hope so," the young Captain answered softly, and Hisagi noted the faint lines of tension furrowing Hitsugaya's brow. "It's about Matsumoto."

"About... Rangiku-san?" Hisagi echoed, not entirely certain he'd heard right, and frowned at Hitsugaya's tense nod.

"Yes. I was hoping to talk to you about her past," came the quiet reply, and Shuuhei frowned, his head tilting inquisitively as he regarded the younger man. Hitsugaya noticed the expression, his frown deepening as he caught Hisagi's eye.

"Even though she's been my Lieutenant for several years now, I know... very little about her. Other than the obvious," he added, scowling, and Shuuhei had to fight back the urge to laugh despite his concern.

Dropping down into the seat next to Hitsugaya's, he settled his elbows on his knees and his chin on his interlaced fingers. "I don't know what I can tell you, sir. I've known Ran for years, but she's pretty private. You ask her something, and she talks a lot about surface stuff - " the Lieutenant's attributes needed not even be mentioned - "and you don't realize that she's using that to distract from answering the real question."

"She drinks with you," Hitsugaya answered, his tone thoughtful. "You, Kira, and perhaps Abarai are the closest thing she has to true friends at this point. And I know Matsumoto's tongue gets lose when she drinks, because I've heard more than I care to admit about various feminine... _things_... while she's in her bottles."

Shuuhei bit back a snort of laughter at the half-appalled, half-embarrassed expression on the other Captain's face, before sitting back in his chair and running a frustrated hand through his hair. "I don't know much, Hitsugaya-taichou. She grew up in a higher level of Rukongai than I did - probably Seventies, although she's never mentioned it specifically. Ichimaru saved her life when she was young and they grew up together. He left Rukongai for the Academy when they were both still kids; she stayed behind for a few more years, then came to Seireitei on invitation to the Academy - what?" he added, confused, as Hitsugaya's head snapped up, eyes intent.

"She was an invitational student?"

"Yes," Hisagi answered slowly, his own eyes slanting away as he thought. "We only discussed it once, but I remembered because it was so unusual. She only said that a Shinigami delivered the invitation to her - I never thought to ask who had signed off on her recommendation."

While it wasn't particularly common for a Rukongai child to receive a specific invitation to join the ranks of the Academy, it was not unheard of. Within a day or two, Hitsugaya, as the sponsor of record, would receive an invitation to be delivered to Kin for her own admission. The invitations were issued to children - or rarely, adults - who had shown enough promise with regards to combat skills, reiatsu potential, or both, to catch the attention of the Shinigami who patrolled their district. They would usually be inspected - frequently unawares and at a distance - by a high-ranking Gotei officer, who would then submit their names and an assessment of their abilities to the Academy for review. Those who were not fortunate enough to catch the eye of a passing patrol were within their rights to journey to the walls of Seireitei, and petition for assessment by an Academy instructor.

Geniuses like Gin and Toushirou got into Academy on the Gotei's funds, but moderate students like Kin - and as he had assumed Matsumoto had been - had to have a sponsor.

If she had a sponsor, there would be a paper trail, probably with a name at the end of it. And there was a little niggling sense at the back of his mind that he needed to find out that name.

Quickly schooling his face back into a blank mask, he rose from his seat and offered the other Captain a short bow. "Thank you, Hisagi, you've been quite helpful."

Bewilderment registered on the tattooed face for a moment, before Hisagi shrugged off the reaction and nodded, rising to return the gesture. "I'm glad I could help, Hitsugaya-taichou."

"As am I," came the distracted response, a frown twisting the words slightly. After a moment of heavy consideration, those razor-sharp teal eyes locked on his again. "Hisagi, does the name Kin mean anything to you?"

_Kin?_ Shuuhei blinked, bewildered, and shrugged slightly. "Golden?"

Hitsugaya snorted faintly and tugged the door open. "Never mind. Good day, Hisagi."

"Good day, sir... Oh, Hitsugaya-taichou!"

Pausing, Toushirou half-turned, glancing over his shoulder at Hisagi, who was scowling at his desk, a vaguely irritated expression on his face. "Question, sir."

"What is it?"

Wincing slightly, Hisagi hesitated, then asked in a rush, "What's your alcohol tolerance like?"

There was a momentary pause while both of them processed the question; Shuuhei, astonished that he had actually dared to ask it; Hitsugaya, rather astonished that Hisagi thought of him consuming alcohol, when most of his other peers still considered him a child. Another beat of silence went by, the red blush tinting Shuuhei's cheekbones progressively darker, before Hitsugaya coughed slightly.

"My alcohol tolerance... is significantly better than yours, Hisagi-taichou," he answered, and slipped out while the man was still gaping.

* * *

"Minori-fukutaichou."

Two solid years of practice prevented Ise Minori, Vice-Captain of the Fifth Division, from jumping at the sudden sound of Kuchiki Byakuya's voice. The man seemed infernally fond of sneaking up on people, although whether he did it for some sort of perverse amusement or simply to keep his talent for masking his reiatsu sharp, nobody had ever dared ask him.

"Kuchiki-taichou," she answered smoothly, shifting the reports she'd been shuffling through under her arm and bowing deeply. "How may I be of assistance today?"

Even now, two years after Abarai Renji's promotion to Captain of the Fifth, Byakuya had not sought to replace his former Lieutenant. However, because the Fifth and Sixth Divisions frequently drilled and patrolled together, it was easy enough for Minori to step in and assist Byakuya's subordinates whenever the lack of a Lieutenant threatened to make the workload impossible on the other officers.

The Fifth and Sixth together were, in the words of Yamamoto Genryuusei himself, 'prime examples of interDivision cooperation.' Both squads could and did obey the orders of the other Division's commanding officers as easily as their own, and their frequent combined practices made their teamwork virtually flawless. The proficiency rate of the officers had risen so quickly with the unorthodox joint command structure that several other Divisions had taken to emulating it; the Third and Ninth had begun regular joint training sessions, and Ukitake and Kyouraku had begun sending out combined patrol teams, with resounding success.

The days in which the Gotei functioned as thirteen completely separate autocracies had vanished into the blood-choked dust of the Winter War. Before that, each Captain was allowed to lead his Squad essentially however he or she pleased, provided patrols were completed and reports submitted. Meetings of the commanding officers had been sporadic at best and attendance was voluntary; it was not uncommon for Captains of disparate Squads to go months without seeing one another.

In the end, although he was not alive to appreciate it, Aizen had been responsible for completely changing the way the Gotei operated.

Twice-monthly Captain's meetings - attendance mandatory - were held the first and fifteenth day of every month. Vice-Captains were also to attend the first-of-the-month meetings, and most everyone - Zaraki and Yachiru not necessarily included - tolerated the imposition on their time with a minimum of fuss. Each Captain would inform the others of their Division's training, patrols, and other duties, allowing everyone to compare different training styles and tactics as well as assess morale.

It was an approach that, if implemented centuries ago, might have ended Aizen's betrayal before it began. Implemented now, at least it stood a good chance of preventing a similar betrayal from occurring in the future.

* * *

"_How may I be of assistance today?"_

"Renji's work schedule," Byakuya answered. "What items are on his calender for today?"

Without even needing to check, Minori shook her head slightly. "Nothing, sir. He took today off."

One silent, eloquent eyebrow arched. Without batting an eye, Minori carefully pulled a small calender from under a pile of personnel files on the surface of Renji's desk and tapped one finger against the day's date. "He took this date off last year, too, sir. It's been on the books for quite some time."

"I expected as much," Byakuya answered, after a moment's pause. "As you were, fukutaichou." Without another word, he vanished into Flashstep.

Minori sighed in exasperation, saluted the spot where he had been standing, and returned to her work.

* * *

Frowning faintly, Renji leaned over the edge of the koi pond in the Kuchiki manor garden, scrutinizing his appearance in the still water.

There was no way for him to 'blend in' anymore. Years of good food, solid rest, and fierce training had left their mark on him. He was clean, well-fed, clearly healthy; all things that the inhabitants of Inuzuri could rarely claim. Even the plain brown yukata he wore - now the poorest garment he owned - was of good, solid material, with no patches or holes, and if a seam here or there showed a repair by Renji's inexpert hand, well, the repairs were made with solid thread and a sharp needle, and still a finer stitch than most of the district's citizens could manage. And of course, his hair - despite being bound back in a wrist-thick braid - was still bound to attract attention, as it always had.

And yet, year after year, he and Rukia went back on this day, laying offerings at the graves of their childhood friends before walking through the streets of Inuzuri, eyes sharp for any children who might be like they were; starving, reiatsu-skilled little pups, stealing scraps from the gutters.

This year, though, he was faced with making the trip alone. He wasn't quite certain if Rukia had been thinking about their yearly pilgrimage when she set the date of her wedding, but she and Ichigo would be heading off on their honeymoon as Renji headed into the ugly depths of Rukongai.

It was entirely possible that Rukia had chosen the date intentionally; her quiet way of breaking the last chain binding her to her past in Inuzuri, freeing her to step fully into her new life; she was Kurosaki Ichigo's wife, Ukitake Jyuushiro's Lieutenant, and - he never was quite sure how it had happened - a recognized member of the Kuchiki Clan Council.

If she had done it on purpose, he knew he could not blame her. Over half a century had gone by since the pair of them had stood upon that hillside and sworn to become Shinigami, and the chances that their old friends would know them now were minute to nonexistent.

But Renji still made the journey every year, bearing offerings to the three weather-worn stone markers on the hill.

One of the house staff, wearing the dusty-blue yukata of a lower servant, approached him, head bent in a nervous bow over the heavy pack he carried, well-laden with food items from the kitchens. The bad habits of born nobility were beginning to rub off on Renji; he barely glanced at the servant as the man stepped forward, his mind already racing along distant courses.

"Thanks," Renji muttered offhandedly as he accepted the bag from the man. The servant bowed deeper still, the end of his black ponytail falling forward over his head as he did so, and started to turn away.

Faster than thought, Renji's hand snapped out, seizing the back of the blue yukata and before the man could take a step. "Hold it!"

The man froze under Renji's grasp, the lean body perfectly still under the heavy cotton robe. Scowling at the back of the dark head, Renji shook his head slightly. "I know I'm not at my best righ' now, but did ya honestly think I wouldn't notice?" he snapped, giving his captive the lightest of shakes to prove his point.

A faint huff of amusement escaped the dark-haired man, and the ducked head slowly lifted, strands of ink-black hair falling back into neat order as humor-bright amethyst eyes raised to meet Renji's gaze.

"I expected you to make the realization somewhat sooner, actually," Byakuya replied, the corners of his mouth quirking upward, and Renji shook his head slightly, caught between disbelief and amusement.

"Too busy thinkin'," he answered gruffly, taking a half-step backwards to assess the bizarre sight of Kuchiki Byakuya in the garb of a lower servant. "An' I wasn' exactly expectin' t' see you runnin' around lookin' like the help. What're you playin' dress-up for, anyway?"

"It is," came the dry response, "somewhat less noticeable than a Captain's haori and kenseikan. I believe this will stand out far less in Inuzuri."

"In..." sheer astonishment dropped Renji's jaw; for a moment, he could do nothing more than stare at his partner. "In Inuzuri?"

"Yes," Byakuya answered calmly, straightening the twisted yukata with a shrug of his shoulders. For a moment, he let the silence linger, before his eyes softened slightly, the expression on his face gentle. "I know that you and Rukia return to Rukongai on this day every year to pay tribute to your childhood friends. She cannot stand at your side this year, but... if you would have me there, I will not see you go alone."

"If... I would have you there?" Renji echoed, incredulity returning his voice. Wordlessly, he reached out, grasping Byakuya's slim shoulders in his hands and drawing the noble against his chest. "Byakuya, havin' you b'side me today... it would mean the world to me."

* * *

Stifling an infuriated sigh, Captain Hitsugaya slammed the records book closed rather more sharply than necessary. A thin cloud of dust billowed from between the pages, and he immediately covered his nose with his sleeve. The last thing he needed was to be taken by another sneezing fit.

He'd spent the last five hours searching through Academy records, financial documents, even the sealed personnel files, driven by the uneasy feeling that had been twining through his gut ever since Shuuhei mentioned Rangiku had been an invited student. Matsumoto had always been lazy; that and her addiction to alcohol were her greatest faults, keeping her as a merely competent officer when she could quite easily have been exemplary.

Also, although they discussed their respective histories only very rarely, she had never once commented on the fact she'd received an invitation to the Academy. He had always assumed that she had petitioned for assessment, the same way Renji, Rukia, and most of the other Rukon-bred Shinigami had.

Curiosity, combined with his inner prodding, had driven him to spend his morning going from archive to archive, trying to find what should have been relatively easy-to-access information; the name of Matsumoto's sponsor. It should have been listed on the Academy registry for that year, in her main personnel file - not the simple one at the office of the Tenth, but the one maintained by the record-keepers of the First Division, which were far more detailed. It was a piece of information he should have been able to retrieve in five _minutes_, not five hours.

However, despite being kidou-protected, all of the documents that would have contained the name of Matsumoto's patron had been damaged beyond legibility or repair.

_All_ of the documents. In all of the archives. Some had burned in mysterious fires, others had the ill fortune to be under a leak in the roof. More still had been torn, three had fallen victim to voracious mice, and one entire volume of Academy records had been hollowed out to provide a convenient hiding place for a series of pornographic photographs involving one of the archival staff and an unseated officer he thought was from the Eleventh.

It had taken him half an hour to stop blushing after _that_ discovery.

Now, with a headache throbbing in his temples and his stomach growling protest at the fact he was once again ignoring the dictates of a regular eating schedule, he shoved the book back onto the shelf he'd pulled it from and left the archival building in a huff.

He had every intention of returning to the Tenth Division, grabbing a brief lunch in the mess hall, and then taking the obvious course of action and asking Matsumoto if she knew the identity of her sponsor.

He rather doubted she would, though. It was not at all uncommon for a sponsor to withhold their identity from their chosen beneficiary; more than one noble's bastard child had been put through the Academy in this manner. And if Rangiku's patron was taking such care to prevent their identity being revealed - after the third set of damaged papers, he was quite convinced that there was no coincidence involved - he doubted that the answer would be as simple as asking his Lieutenant.

"Oh! Toushirou-kun!"

Toushirou winced. While he was usually able to maintain a modicum of bewildered respect for the man now waving to him, the steady ache in his temples was wearing on his patience and temper. He didn't want to offend or upset the older Captain by being unintentionally rude - as Matsumoto had blisteringly informed him, even his well-intentioned attempts at helping her had come off quite cruelly - he thought the man would be more upset if Toushirou ignored him. Wearily, he raised a hand to wave back, hoping that that would be the end of it, but Ukitake was already coming over, an amused Kyouraku trailing in his wake.

"Ukitake-taichou, Kyouraku-taichou. Good morning."

"I think you mean 'good afternoon,' " Kyouraku corrected, pushing the brim of his hat up slightly and peering down at the young Captain. "It's almost an hour past midday."

"Ah." Well, that certainly explained his stomach's dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. "I lost track of time, I'm afraid," he sighed, and, much to his embarrassment, his stomach punctuated the statement with a loud growl.

"Oh, perfect!" Ukitake smiled. "Kyouraku and I were just headed to lunch; please, you should join us!"

"I couldn't impose -"

"It's not an imposition, it's an invitation," Kyouraku drawled back, a lazy grin crossing his face. "Come on, Hitsugaya. You know Jyuu-chan loves feeding you."

Ukitake nodded cheerfully in response - the man did indeed enjoy doting on his friends and comrades - and Hitsugaya could only nod his acceptance and allow himself to be swept off.

* * *

Pale fingers hesitated, hovering momentarily over the time-worn surface of the grave marker, before settling gently against the cool stone. Almost reverently, Byakuya bowed to the simple monument, granting the marker as much respect as he did Hisana's elaborate shrine.

He and Renji moved silently around the three graves, laying out the offerings - incense, which Byakuya sparked with careful application of kidou - and food, more of it than even three hungry boys could have consumed in a week, beside the markers. Byakuya did not question the quantity of simple, nourishing fare that Renji had requested from the Kuchiki family's kitchens; he, like Renji, was perfectly aware of the two bright pairs of eyes, watching hungrily from the shadows of the bushes on the far side of the outcropping.

"How many children do you expect to feed with these offerings?" he asked quietly, keeping his voice low enough that it would not reach the two lurking in the brush.

Shrugging slightly, Renji began rolling up the bag he was holding. "Dunno. Kids tend t' bunch together out here - could be just those two, or they could be scouts for a group of twenty. No way of knowin' without askin' 'em, an' I don't think they'd talk to us." Tying the bag off, he shoved it roughly into his belt, opposite Zabimaru, and stood up, dusting off the knees of his yukata. "I, uh, always walk back through the town... figure I can check for any kids who're like... well, like Rukia an' me..."

"You need not justify your course to me, Renji. Today, I follow you."

Barking a soft laugh, Renji reached forward and jerked the noble into an unexpected embrace. "How is it that you can always say jus' what I need t' hear?" he whispered, mouth smiling against Byakuya's ear, and the noble laughed softly.

"I ask Zabimaru what you most need me to say, of course."

Incredulity painted itself across Renji's face for two heartbeats, until the perfect blankness of Byakuya's face cracked slightly, and a very faint smile curled the edges of his mouth.

Laughing, Renji cuffed him on the shoulder. "You ass. You keep sayin' shit like that with a perfectly straight face, I can never tell if you're jokin' or not!"

"Forgive me for stating the obvious, but that is precisely the point."

A grin bright on his face, Renji slung an arm over Byakuya's shoulders. "Ah, you know you're forgiven," he snorted, and turned them both towards the path that lead back to the main village of Inuzuri.

Both of them pretended to ignore the rustle-flash of movement from behind them, as hungry fingers snatched at the food they had left behind.

* * *

"Where you in the archives all morning, Hitsugaya?" Kyouraku asked, some time later, when the server had cleared away their emptied dishes, leaving them to linger over drinks; tea for Hitsugaya and Ukitake and sake for Kyouraku.

"Unfortunately, yes," Hitsugaya sighed, inhaling the steam curling from his cup. "I was looking for a minor piece of information, but every document that should have contained it had been damaged somehow."

"Eh?" Frowning, Kyouraku stopped with his sake bowl halfway to his mouth. "Damaged? Damaged how?" His forehead, already furrowed, creased more and more deeply with each description Hitsugaya gave him - until the 'photo album' was described, at which point he laughed hard enough that he was forced to set his cup down, lest he spill it.

Beside him, Ukitake, though smiling, looked more worried than amused. "Destruction of the archival records is a quite serious offense," he mused, one long finger tracing the rim of his cup. "And if the sabotage is that clumsy and obviously done, it clearly does not concern the saboteur that we discover his or her efforts. What is the information you were trying to find?"

"The name of an Academy sponsor. Matsumoto's," he added, before either man could ask, and Ukitake went very still.

"Jyuu-chan?" Kyouraku said sharply, as Hitsugaya worriedly asked, "Ukitake?"

"I'm fine," Ukitake answered quickly, waving a hand before him. "However... I don't believe you're aware, Toushirou, but whenever I am too ill to leave my bed, I will often ask that paperwork be brought in to me, so that I may occupy myself with something productive. Some of the work I take on is general admissions forms from the Academy."

The wave of incredulity struck Hitsugaya full-force. Certainly it couldn't be this easy... "You didn't...?"

"As a matter of fact, I did," Ukitake answered, a deep frown etching lines in his usually jovial face. "I recalled it because there was a note on the application, stating that she was a childhood friend of Ichimaru's, and he had suggested she might be quite talented."

"Ichimaru was only a third-seat when Rangiku joined the Academy, though. Certainly he didn't sponsor her?"

"No, no," Ukitake sighed, setting his cup down. "Gin recommended her, but she was sponsored by someone else entirely. I had quite forgotten about it until you brought it up, though."

The niggling sensation in Hitsugaya's stomach twisted into a stabbing pain of anxiety as the suspicions that had been lurking in his mind burst to the forefront.

"Matsumoto Rangiku was sponsored by the then-Captain of the Fifth Division, one Captain Aizen Sousuke."

* * *

O

* * *

Wow, this chapter seemed to spend most of its time going in circles... I assure you, this is actually leading somewhere! Just bear with, please, and relax - right now, Hitsugaya is just as confused as you are.


	5. Smoke and Silver

Apologies again for the late posting! Work got a little bit insane last week - three days of 7-a.m. to 10-p.m. shifts ate up most of my usual writing time, and I was forced to finish the chapter today (Wednesday) when I should have been posting it. I will try, very sincerely, NOT to make a habit of this, because I don't like my bad habits.

A bit of background in this chapter, and I apologize in advance for the fact that there will be multiple flashbacks, including flashbacks-in-flashbacks. If it must be blamed on somebody, blame it on Nic Cage and his movie _Next_, which I was watching a few days ago. Brilliant movie and I love Mr. Cage's work, but it does have a mildly - or extremely, depending on your opinion of temporal paradoxes - disorienting effect on the viewer. I apologize if this chapter causes the same difficulties!

Warnings for this chapter: Angst and tobacco use. Required PSA: The author of this work does not in any way condone or encourage smoking or the use of tobacco. Smoking and chewing of tobacco has been clearly linked to cancer, asthma, and general nasty odors. That said, it is being used as a characterization piece, no complaints please.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter Five: Smoke and Silver

* * *

There were eight guests at Ishida and Orihime's wedding.

Ichigo and Rukia were there, of course. Renji, whom Uryuu was almost willing to call a friend after the events of Hueco Mundo, had been invited, and the presence of Rukia and Renji meant Byakuya came along more-or-less by default. Kiego, Mizuiro, and Tatsuki joined at Orihime's insistence, and Kurosaki Isshin rounded off the group.

Urahara and Yoroichi had been invited - for the sake of politeness more than actual desire for their presence, on Uryuu's part at least - but both of them claimed previous obligations. Yoroichi had been telling the truth; Urahara most likely had not been, but it was a convenient lie for everyone involved. Both Orihime and Uryuu had expressed the desire for a quiet, simple ceremony - although with the chaos of Rukia and Ichigo's 'second marriage' fresh in everyone's minds, perhaps that wasn't as surprising as it should have been.

The second ceremony, held in the Seireitei for the sole purpose of appeasing the Kuchiki Clan Elders - they had refused to travel to the Living World for the actual ceremony - had taken under an hour to degenerate into a fiasco of epic proportions.

When the guest list was considered, though, that was not remotely surprising. Every Captain and Vice-Captain in the Gotei was in attendance, up to and including Yamamoto himself. Added to that already-volatile mixture was the entire compliment of the Visoreds - Hiyori included, head held high despite her lost powers - two dozen Kuchiki Elders, and, much to the astonishment of the crowd, Kukaku and Ganju of the fallen Shiba Clan.

* * *

_Silence rippled across the room like waves across a still pond, before the shocked gasps and disbelieving whispers tore into the air, dozens of wide eyes pinned to the open doorway of the meeting hall. _

_Ichigo, stunned mute and motionless, could only stare openmouthed at the two figures still standing in the doorway, until a gentle hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his reverie. _

_Turning, he looked into Ukitake's kind eyes, reading the silent question in them, and nodded slowly in response. _

"_I'm okay," he managed, feeling Rukia's warmth against his other side, her surprisingly strong hand encircling his own. "I'm okay."_

_Before his wedding, if you had asked Ichigo to name the most monumental day in his life, it would have been the day he surrendered captaincy of the Third Division to Kira Izuru. He chose to remember the day for that event, because thinking of it any other way - _

'A Shinigami Captain,' Kyouraku said, face musing but his eyes angry -

'Masaki's father was the King of the Soul Society... and that puts you in the position of Heir.' Isshin, voice steady, his own eyes pleading as Ichigo stared at him, the heartbreak clear in his gaze as Ichigo wordlessly pushed back from the table and stormed from the house.

* * *

_It had taken Ichigo three days to seek out Ukitake, who had greeted him with tea and photo albums, and let Ichigo page through them until he found himself staring at a distorted mirror-image of himself, black-haired and dark-eyed, smiling fiercely at the camera._

"_This... this is Kaien, isn't it?" he'd whispered, and Ukitake had leaned across his desk to study the picture before nodding. _

"_Yes. You do look remarkably like him, although his build was much stockier. You both inherited Isshin's features, but your build and coloring obviously take after your mother." Saying that, he'd sat back, sipped his tea, and calmly waited as the information slowly sank through Ichigo's mind. _

_Ukitake had endured the following explosion of temper without batting an eye, quietly shielding Ichigo's turbulent, explosive reiatsu with his own and humming softly beneath his breath while the young man ranted the furious pain of his father's deception until his knees fell out from under him, at which point Ukitake quietly handed him another cup of tea and told Ichigo about the Isshin he had once known. _

_Ichigo had come away from the meeting with a new respect for his father, even if years more would pass before he forgave Isshin for the history of lies he'd heaped upon his family - families, rather. Because Ichigo now knew he had a half-brother and half-sister; Ganju and Kukaku of the Shiba Clan._

_If nothing else, it explained his father's love of the fireworks festivals._

_

* * *

_

_Staring across the meeting hall of the Kuchiki manor, Ichigo had met Kukaku's eyes._

_Rudely dressed in a brilliant-red kimono, the woman had set her hand on her cocked hip, lifted her chin, and smirked at him. "Hey there, little brother."_

_The uproar had been instantaneous. _

_In the end, it had fallen on Yoroichi and Ukitake to round up the crowd of babbling, incredulous Kuchiki Elders, and Renji, his parade-ground voice at full force, somehow became responsible for talking sense into the clustered nobles. How the task had landed on Renji's shoulders, Ichigo was not remotely certain, but what was more surprising was that they _listened_. _

_Within the first minute of Renji speaking, every Elder in the worried cluster had been reassured that Rukia was not within the direct line of succession, and any children she bore that the Clan did not find suitable need not be granted a Clan title; and that the reverse was also true. The Shiba family, despite being stripped of their noble titles and power, were still a clan known to have produced incredibly powerful warriors - "And who exemplifies this better than Kurosaki?" Byakuya had muttered, the words echoed by Renji a beat later. _

_Even though being the grandson of the Soul King would probably have granted him enough status to please even the Kuchiki Elders, the bloodline of Ichigo's mother remained a secret, closed behind the lips of the few who knew the truth of it. Like Renji, however, Ichigo's directness and courage would earn him the respect of the Clan Elders within a few short years._

_It was, unfortunately, that same directness and courage that had a tendency to get Ichigo - as well as members of his family - into a great deal of trouble. _

_Despite it being her first visit to the Seireitei, Ichigo's sister Karin seemed quite comfortable mingling with the crowd. Most of the Shinigami who had been based in Karakura for any length of time were able to recognize her, at least in passing, and Rukia, Renji, Hitsugaya and Matsumoto were all on a first-name basis with the girl._

_Which did not, unfortunately, help matters any when Karin noticed a severely-annoyed Hitsugaya attempting to ignore the persistent attention of a certain pink-haired Eleventh Division Lieutenant. Stepping towards them, Karin made her best attempt at looking sympathetic and maternal as she met Yachiru's eyes and asked, gently, if perhaps the little girl's parents weren't looking for her, and maybe she should go back to them and stop bothering Toushirou-san?_

_Matsumoto, lingering near her Captain, had dissolved into laughter, while Yachiru and Hitsugaya gained identical incredulous expressions. _

"_You really need to stop judging by appearances," Hitsugaya had muttered under his breath, as Yachiru turned both her full attention and full volume on the well-meaning Karin, informing the girl quite forcefully that she could do whatever she wanted because her Ken-chan let her, all the while quite neglecting to mention that she was actually a ranking Gotei officer and not simply a young child. _

_It hadn't taken a great deal of that to attract Kenpachi, who generally lingered in the fringes of his adoptive daughter's ring of influence out of habit. His growled "what's going on here?" had utterly failed to impress Karin, who folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head back enough to glare at the mountainous man for the space of two heartbeats, before launching into an abrupt and startlingly comprehensive assessment of his abilities as a parent - largely focusing on his failure in allowing Yachiru to become so painfully spoiled._

_Sheer astonishment had left the mouths of everyone within earshot gaping; a few people recovered themselves enough to dissolve into near-hysterical laughter, at the dumbfounded expression on Kenpachi's face if nothing else. _

_It was at that point he'd told Karin to mind her own fucking business, and she'd kicked him in the kneecap for swearing in front of a child._

_Ichigo's sister or not, the indignant anger Zaraki felt when her no-longer-dainty foot landed squarely against the bottom of his patella was quite enough to have him reaching for her neck, fully intent on snapping the thin bone in one hand -_

_ - until Unohana Retus's delicate hand settled itself on his forearm._

"_Kenpachi," Unohana said, her voice as soft and delicate as ever, and the scarred hand dropped back to Zaraki's side without even a consideration of protest. _

_Ichigo and Renji, two of those watching the entire affair take place - Ichigo with one hand on the hilt of Zangetsu, ready to move forward the instant he felt his sister was in danger - exchanged mutually stunned glances. _

"_Just like that, and -"_

"_How did she -"_

"_It's 'cause Braidy-Lady owns Ken-chan's balls," Yachiru piped up from the general vicinity of their knees. Despite the point of origin, her voice was quite clear enough to carry throughout the entire Hall. "When Braidy-Lady is happy, Ken-chan says she and he have balls-to-the-walls nights, but when she's mad he says she gives him blue balls, 'cept I've never seen any -"_

"_YACHIRU!" It probably wasn't possible for a man of Kenpachi's reputation and appearance to look mortified, but that didn't stop him from making a valiant effort to do so. _

"_Perhaps this is not the venue for a discussion of that particular nature, Yachiru," Unohana said calmly, a hint of a smile creasing her kind eyes at the corners. Several men in her immediate proximity immediately broke into a cold sweat of fear._

_Yachiru, for her part, shrugged faintly, blew an impressive raspberry at Karin and declared her a 'brat! quite loud enough for half the mansion to hear, then scurried to Zaraki's side and swarmed up the length of his kimono to settle on his shoulder. _

_Without another word, the trio bowed their goodbyes and threaded their way out of the hall. Most of the guests valued their lives enough not to laugh until the door shut again and Kenpachi wouldn't be able to identify their snickers._

_

* * *

_

_Beyond the Kenpachi incident, the ceremony went off reasonably well, leaving the reception to start on a high note. _

_It ended on what might have been a much higher one - as high, in fact, as a wedding cake could fly with the assistance of a small firework jammed into it._

_Which was, as it turned out, pretty damned high. _

_Hands on his hips, Ichigo stared up at the cake-splattered ceiling and wondered exactly how the hell Byakuya's cleaning staff was going to manage this one._

_

* * *

_

Uryuu and Orihime's wedding was taking place at the Shoten, which did seem to be 'the default gathering place for our merry band of fools,' as Uryuu so affectionately put it. Even though it was now under the control of Hirako Shinji and Muguruma Kensei - the latter of whom everyone would have quite willingly voted 'Least Likely to Operate a Candy Store' - the Urahara Shoten had retained the name, cheap candy and obscure black-market Soul Society technology that had defined it under the original ownership. It had also remained, as Uryuu remarked, the default gathering place for their group, whether it was for training, strategizing sessions or weddings.

His mind elsewhere, Ichigo roamed through the shop on autopilot, coming to an abrupt stop when he realized he was standing at the back door with no clear memory of crossing the intervening space. He could feel the low, steady thrum of Uryuu's energy coming from the other side, though - oddly, while Hitsugaya's and Rukia's energies both smelled of varying forms of mint, it was Uryuu's that smelled like snow.

Sighing softly, Ichigo rolled the door back and slipped onto the back porch, stifling an immediate cough in his sleeve as a wisp of smoke caught itself in his nose.

Two strides away, Uryuu leaned against the wooden pillar of the porch, one knee cocked so that his toe rested on the plank floor. His suit - handmade, of course, and pristinely white with deep navy trim - hadn't so much as wrinkled, despite the heat of the day and his uncharacteristic slump against the wood.

"Bad for you, you know."

Long fingers, hidden behind white silk gloves, lifted the cigarette away from the thin-lipped mouth to permit the rejoinder to escape on a stream of smoke. "Most of the habits I've picked up from my father are."

Scowling, Ichigo crossed the porch with heavy strides and settled his back against the other post, standing opposite Ishida and deliberately mimicking the other's posture, although minus the cigarette. "Maybe you should consider picking up fewer of his habits."

A noncommittal noise answered him, followed by a thin stream of smoke blown deliberately towards his face. Ichigo waved it away in annoyance, trying to weigh the young Quincy's mood for a long moment before giving up and asking his question anyway.

"Why isn't he here?" The words were low, as gentle as Ichigo could make them, but Uryuu's eyes narrowed sharply behind his glasses all the same.

"You mean Ryuuken?"

"Who else? He's your father, Uryuu. He should be here for you! Quincy pride and Shinigami and whatever the hell else has come between you, a father should still be there for his own son's wedding!"

Uryuu snorted in disgust, a few narrow wisps of smoke curling from his nostrils as he did so. It was the only time Ichigo could remember that Uryuu's first name - 'Rain Dragon' - actually seemed suitable.

"My father, Ichigo, has spent my entire lifetime making his opinion of me quite clear. I am, and always have been, an unwanted intrusion into his life."

As Ichigo jerked back, appalled, Uryuu merely drew another drag off the cigarette, exhaling the smoke slowly before he continued. "My grandfather, Ishida Souken - my Master when I was first learning the Quincy arts - always had the best interests of the Quincy Clan at heart, even above and beyond those of his own son. He was the one who ordered Ryuuken to marry and insisted he produce an heir to carry on the bloodlines of our people."

Ichigo winced. Try as he might, he couldn't help Byakuya's eyes from surfacing in his memory - his eyes the first night Ichigo had seen them, grey as stone and twice as heartless, ordering his own sister to her death.

"Ryuuken wanted no part of an arranged marriage, but in the end, he bowed to his father's wishes." The cigarette raised, tip burning dully once again, and the next words escaped on a gust of exhaled smoke. "It was the last time he would ever do so. The day I was born, Ryuuken turned his back on everything it meant to be a Quincy. And from that moment, he never once forgave Souken - or me."

"But... why?" Ichigo managed, aghast, as Uryuu lifted the cigarette to check how much of it was left. Frowning slightly, he stubbed the burning end out on the porch rail before turning back to Ichigo.

"Kurosaki, my father is not... inclined towards women. Although there were other reasons he resented my Grandfather's interference, that was likely the primary one."

"Your dad -" stopping short, Ichigo shook his head like a dog coming out of water. "Fuck, am I the only guy around here who's completely straight?"

Affront straightened Uryuu's spine with an audible pop. "Excuse me!"

Ichigo merely blinked at him. "Excuse you, what?"

"Kurosaki, you seem entirely too intent on slandering my orientation!"

A snort. "It's not slander when it's true, Uryuu. I was at that party that the Gotei hosted, after the War ended."

Uryuu's pale face abruptly went several shades redder, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses. "What you saw was -"

"What I saw was you and Renji. Kissing." A brief pause, then, "Does Byakuya know?"

"Honestly, Kurosaki!" Beet-red by now, Ishida took half a step forward, looking intent on smacking his companion across the side of the head, then thought the better of it, sighed hugely, and slumped back against his post. "To answer the last first, yes, Kuchiki knows. He was there, as I'm sure you'll remember. And what you saw was a rather inebriated Abarai Renji, who was in extremely high spirits given that we'd all _survived_ that miserable War, kissing me. I was not, as you might recall, an active or encouraging partner."

"You weren't objecting, either."

"And how, precisely, was I supposed to react? I was too stunned to respond until the kiss was over in any case, at which time it was a moot point," he huffed, shoving at his glasses.

When Ichigo just stared at him, blank-faced, Uryuu sighed faintly, slumping down a little farther against the wooden support. "Abarai and I... we fought Szayel-Aporro Grantz in Hueco Mundo, Ichigo, and Grantz was every bit as much of a madman as Kurotsuchi. The battle nearly killed us more times than I can count. It's not the sort of experience a person can go through without having some sort of bond with the person experiencing it with them."

"Battlefield brotherhood?" Ichigo offered, and Uryuu shrugged slightly in response.

"As drunk as Abarai was that night, I also suspect there might have been some mistaken identity involved. Kuchiki and I are not remarkably dissimilar..."

"If you ignore the three inches of height difference," Ichigo smirked, and the expression broadened to a grin at Uryuu's glare. While Ichigo had gone through multiple growth spurts - physical as well as spiritual - in the past years, and now stood nearly eye-to-eye with Renji, Uryuu had gained very little height from the time Ichigo had first met him.

"Intoxication, Kurosaki, can make many things seem entirely relative." Seeing Ichigo open his mouth - no doubt preparing to ask if Ishida had ever been drunk enough for someone's identity to seem 'entirely relative,' Uryuu quickly cut in. "What, exactly, is this sudden fixation on people's sexuality springing from, Kurosaki? Certainly you're not bored with Rukia already?"

"No!" Ichigo snapped, vehemently enough that Uryuu rocked backwards and smacked his head on the post. "It's got nothing to do with Rukia," Ichigo added, his tone more subdued, when Uryuu raised a questioning eyebrow, rubbing the back of his head.

"Then where are your issues stemming from, precisely?"

The glare that was leveled at Uryuu left the Quincy fighting a smirk, as Ichigo shook his head and sighed, slumping a little against his porch pillar. "It's actually... well, when Kyouraku and Ukitake were at the house, just before Kira took command of the Third... some of what they said and just... there was something... _weird_ going on. Between the three of them," he added, when Uryuu looked perplexed.

"Between... all three of them?" Uryuu repeated, blinking a few times at the thought. "That's... somewhat unusual. Does it bother you?"

"What are you, a psychiatrist?" Ichigo snapped, then, "No. Or, not really. I'm not homophobic, Ishida - hell, I was one of the ones pushing Kira and Shuuhei to hook up! - but it's my _Dad_ that I'm talking about, and that's just..." Breaking off, Ichigo shook his head with a grimace. "Weird."

"What's weird?" came a deep voice from the door of the Shoten, and both of Ishida and Ichigo jumped sharply, spinning to face the source of the voice.

"Chad?" Ichigo said, his voice a little sharper and higher than usual, and the big man slowly rolled back the door, dark eyes peering at Ichigo from under the fringe of his bangs. Seated on his shoulder, a little green plush turtle in a miniature tuxedo shirt and pants raised one green felt hand in silent acknowledgement.

"Yo, Nova," Ichigo said, a bit weakly.

"How can you move so quietly?" Ishida demanded of Chad, and received only a shrug in reply.

"People don't listen," the modsoul offered, shrugging a little.

"And you were busy with your own conversation," Chad added, duplicating the shrug on a much larger scale. Nova had one hand tucked into Chad's shirt collar to help him maintain his balance on the shifting stone that was Chad's shoulder.

When Urahara had returned to Seireitei, the three modsouls who had been hanging about the Shoten had split off and gone their separate ways. With Kon already occupying Ichigo's room and body, Ririn had elected to follow Urahara to the Soul Society. Blatantly ignoring the old laws ordering the immediate destruction of all battle-modified gikongan, he had quite cheerfully refitted her gigai and kept her on as part of his 'staff,' with the same duties as Jinta and Ururu - which was to say, none.

Kurodo had returned to Orihime's apartment, and spent the months following the War talking the girl through the horrors of her nightmares. Orihime took comfort in having another living being in the house when her friends could not be there - there were only so many sleepovers one could realistically have - and Kurodo was quite happy to be of help.

Chad and Nova had never even discussed the matter - when told Urahara was leaving the shop, Chad had simply scooped up the quiet soul on his way out of the Shoten that night. The pair probably never exchanged more than ten words in a given day, but they were friends, and that, in Ichigo's mind, was all that mattered.

"They sent me out to get you," Chad explained, a slight tip of his head towards the Shoten suggesting that the 'they' probably consisted of the rest of the wedding party. "Everything's ready."

Nodding slightly, Uryuu pushed himself up off the pillar and straightened his gleaming white suit. "Thank you, Sado," he answered levelly, tugging at the thin gloves that hid the battle-scars marking his hands.

Dark eyes settled on him, startlingly intense behind the veil of cocoa-brown hair. "You're happy, Uryuu?"

Long fingers paused in the middle of fretting with the gloves, and Uryuu blinked once, slowly, as though he hadn't truly considered the question. A heartbeat went by before he nodded, his eyes thoughtful. "I'm marrying the woman of my dreams," he answered softly. "Until now, we've survived. But as of today, I can begin to live." Raising his head, Uryuu met Chad's eyes squarely as he answered. "Today is the greatest day of my life, and there is nothing that could make it better."

* * *

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Ishida Ryuuken glanced at the clock on his office wall and frowned.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

The scratching of a pen on paper almost obscured the steady rhythm of the clock as Ryuuken slashed his signature across the bottom of the requisition form in front of him, but as soon as the tip of the pen lifted, the sound of the clock began throbbing against his ears again.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Another folder, this one marked with a red tab that meant surgical records, was pulled from the corner of his desk and opened, pen once again in hand, but there were no notes that needed to be made.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

The red-tabbed folder went back on the pile, a green-tabbed one - green for financials - taking its place, but it was an accounting summary, nothing requiring notation or signatures.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

The green-tabbed folder went back on the pile, and Ryuuken dropped his head into his hands, silver hair falling forward over his long fingers, brushing over sensitive skin and the half-numb lines of old scars.

_Tick. Tock. Tick-CRUNCH._

Scowling, Ryuuken lowered his arm and allowed the gleaming bow in his hand to disperse. The blue-white arrow gleamed brightly from the ruins of the clock for another blessedly silent second, until Ryuuken drew the particles of energy back within himself.

In the absence of the clock's voice, the memory of Kurosaki Isshin's rang painfully loud.

* * *

_Heavy fists slammed down on the edge of Ryuuken's desk. "Dammit, Ryuuken, he's your son! He's the only blood family you have left!"_

"_Reminding me of your greater blessings will not help your case, Isshin," came the frigid retort, dark eyes flashing behind narrow-framed glasses. _

"_I'd think it would," Isshin snapped back. "I've watched Ichigo marry, and I still have the opportunity to watch Karin and Yuzu marry. You're only going to get this one chance, Ryuuken."_

"_And you believe I should set aside the last twenty years and go watch my son seize an opportunity I was never granted?" Ryuuken snapped, shoving out of his seat and leaning forward, nose-to-nose with the bigger man. His voice lowered with every word he spoke, until there was no more tone to it, just a furious, agonized snarl. "You want me to watch as he is allowed to marry the person he loves, and ignore the fact I was forced into a loveless marriage simply to grant that ungrateful child his conception? You want me to forget that I was forced to watch the person I love walk away?"_

_Two sets of dark eyes bored into each other until, sighing, Isshin finally looked away. Bitterly vindicated, Ryuuken dropped back into his seat, drawing a folder across the desk as the Shinigami slowly settled himself back into the visitor's chair he'd been in. _

"_The past is exactly that, Ryuuken. We're supposed to learn from it, not enslave ourselves to it. We have all of our futures ahead of us," Isshin said softly, reaching one hand carefully across the desk. Ryuuken slapped it away, the sharp tip of his pen digging into the skin of Isshin's palm. The bigger man recoiled with a hiss, cradling his hand for a moment as he watched the few beads of blood appear. _

"_Heh," he muttered, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket to blot at the crimson droplets. "You always hurt the ones -"_

"_Finish that thought, and that scratch will be the least of your worries," Ryuuken warned, and Isshin snapped his mouth shut. _

_Not meeting Ryuuken's eyes, he silently summoned the glowing energy of a healing kidou to the tip of his finger, tracing it along the shallow gash in his palm and leaving the callused skin unmarked in its wake. Frowning thoughtfully, he flexed his hand slowly, testing the healing. Apparently satisfied, he pushed himself out of his seat, turning his gaze back to the silent man behind the desk._

"_He's your son, Ryuuken. If you love him, you should want his happiness."_

_Without another word, Isshin turned and left the office, his footsteps silent on the heavy carpet. It wasn't until the door closed behind him that the silver-haired Quincy looked up again. _

_The handkerchief, dots of blood a silent and coded accusation, had been left on the corner of his desk. _

'_You always hurt the ones...'_

_

* * *

_

Seizing his coat from the rack by the door, Ryuuken swept out of his office.

* * *

It was a beautifully warm, sunny day, and the clear air had tempted many families to the small park near Karakura General Hospital. A few people jogged the smooth cement pathways, long practice enabling them to dodge slower walkers, mothers with strollers, and the occasional dog and owner without ever losing the rhythm of the music on their mp3 players.

None of them saw anything unusual about the brown-haired toddler sitting beneath one of the spreading trees, prodding at the dirt beneath him with a twig while his mother, a lovely young woman with long, wavy brown hair and tired eyes, sat on a bench a few feet away, her eyes constantly flickering between her young son and the book in her lap.

The soil where the boy was sitting was loose, grainy; he poked the stick he held into a little pile of dirt before him and blinked in surprise when a handful of ants spilled from the top of it, scuttling back and forth as they attempted to repair the damage to their hill.

Curious, the boy dug deeper. More and more ants appeared the deeper he dug, and the insects became more and more frantic as he opened the interior of their nest to the bright air. One ant, much larger than the others, lay enthroned in a small chamber, the white shapes of her eggs about her.

Brown eyes, still wide with the innocence of childhood, narrowed in thought.

The stick clutched in one still-chubby hand poked forward, crushing the ant queen to death beneath its fractured end.

Sitting back, the boy watched silently as the ant colony dissolved into chaos.

* * *

The sleek silver Porsche eased out of the hospital's parking garage with a low rumble of the engine. Keeping the pressure on the accelerator light - it did not do to speed down these crowded streets - Ryuuken drove slowly past the park outside the hospital, his attention on the vehicles around him. When a bicyclist flashed by outside of his passenger-side window, though, he flicked his eyes towards the motion for a split-second before turning them back to the road.

Then, frowning, he glanced back. A brown-haired child, perhaps two years old, blinked at him from within the shadow cast by one of the enormous old trees that edged the park. There was nothing to mark the child as unusual in any way - just another little brat playing in the dirt - but somehow, Ryuuken felt an ugly shiver of fear course up his spine.

'_Absurdity_,' he thought to himself, turning his attention back to the road and forcefully putting the child from his mind.

* * *

The drive across Karakura was not a hard one - he'd made the trip from his fine hospital to this dusty, run-down little corner in the Mitsumiya district more times than he cared to count or admit, on the nights when he could no longer stand the silence of his house and the echoes within his mind. Here, in this little shop, there had always been an understanding ear and a bottle of good sake, no matter how grudgingly it was poured. That had changed when Kisuke left; the Visoreds did not trust him, nor he them. Which was not to say he necessarily had trusted Kisuke, either, but the scientist had been something close enough to a friend.

Pulling the Porsche into the dusty patch of land ostensibly serving as a front yard, Ryuuken sighed faintly, staring at the unprepossessing structure for a long moment.

'_We're supposed to learn from it, not enslave ourselves to it. We have all of our futures ahead of us.'_

Sighing, Ryuuken yanked his parking brake into place, shut the car off, and got out.

* * *

His face expressionless, Uryuu knelt silently beside his soon-to-be wife, his eyes fixed on the gleaming silver sansankudo set - property of the Kuchiki House, crafted especially for the ceremony that joined Byakuya and Renji, it had later been used to join Ichigo and Rukia. Byakuya himself had offered its use for Uryuu and Orihime's ceremony. _A good precedent, _the noble had said, his own slender hand caught in Renji's broad one,_ as this set has tied the bonds of two strong couples now. I see no reason why the strength and joy it brings to unions should not be shared._

On his knees before the delicate cups of silver, Uryuu bowed his head and exhaled a silent prayer. Nanao, the forgotten sister, had been there to watch Byakuya's wedding. Ichigo's half-siblings had presented themselves at his.

As Orihime's gentle hand found his own, Uryuu closed his eyes and wished for his family.

* * *

The sound of the door at the back of the room sliding open startled everyone.

As all eyes settled on him, Ishida Ryuuken frowned slightly, the light splintering off of his glasses to hide the expression in his eyes.

"R-Ryuuken?"

Uryuu's stunned whisper drew Ryuuken's attention to the front of the room, where his son knelt beside a wide-eyed young woman. Her hair, long enough to sweep the ground as she sat seiza, was the color of warmth and sun, looking so alien against the world Uryuu had built around himself, one of blue and white and cold loneliness. A world, Ryuuken realized, that looked entirely too much like the one he himself had been living in for the past decades.

'_Learn from it. We have our whole futures ahead of us.'_

"I hope I'm not late," Ryuuken said, hoping his voice did not betray the awkwardness he felt.

For the first time in years, Uryuu felt a genuine smile break across his face. "No, Father. You're right on time."


	6. Swords and Secrets

A/N: First off, I must (with respect to Whitecloud) apologize for last week's unscheduled hiatus. A huge thank-you to those of you who wrote to ask how I was, it's wonderful to know you care! Suffice it to say that a number of issues in my work and personal life conspired against me simultaneously, and writing was simply not going to happen. I struggled with this chapter, for no particular reason other than an apparent mental block. I'm still not happy with it, but I have done my level best. I hope that it can satisfy those few of you who are still reading.

NOTE ON TIMELINE: This chapter actually takes place six months _previous_ to chapter five, _Smoke and Silver_, picking up immediately after chapter four, _Paper and Stone_, left off of Renji and Byakuya's day in Rukongai. Hitsugaya's sections are taking place about a week later.

Translator's Notes:

Haru: Unisex name, in this case meaning 'spring.'

Ko: Unisex name, in this case meaning 'peace.'

Michi: Unisex name meaning 'pathway.'

Hiro: Unisex name in this case meaning 'generous' or 'tolerant.'

Kyo: Unisex name in this case meaning 'village.'

Tsutomu: Male name meaning 'worker.'

Junrinan: Rukongai District One, where Hitsugaya and Hinamori grew up.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR **

Chapter Six: Swords and Secrets

* * *

"They're Shinigami."

"Don' be stupid," came the responding hiss, barely audible and still several degrees louder than the whisper it answered.

A sharp glare answered that, but he merely shook his head at her "Everyone knows they only let nobles be Shinigami! An' ain't no way the red one's a noble, not with those marks!"

"Are you deaf as well as blind?" she whispered back, eyes flashing. "Everyone knows about the swordsman from Zaraki -"

His snort of contempt was loud enough that they both froze, afraid that the two figures kneeling over the graves had heard it. When neither the black-haired one - either a handsome woman or a pretty man, he couldn't tell from that distance - nor the red-haired one, who was a taller man than either of them had ever seen - looked around, he turned half his attention back to her in aggravation. "Stupid!" he hissed again, ignoring her increasingly angry glare. "Those're jus' stories that the Shinigami spread, tryin' t' make 'emselves sound better! B'sides, you'd never see a Shinigami layin' grave goods, they only come down here if they gotta kill someone or buy 'em!"

That earned him a look of resigned contempt. "You've been listening to Michi again," she sighed, shaking her head.

"An' what if I have?" he hissed back, defiant as he could be with a branch sticking into his ear. "He knows -"

"He knows the way to the bottom of a bottle," she interrupted crossly, eyes narrowing as dark-haired figure knelt beside the first of the graves and straightened again, leaving a stick of smoking incense in the ground. "There, you see?"

"See what?" came the annoyed half-growl in response, as he tried to wrestle the sharp-edged branch away from his head without undue noise.

"He just lit the incense with magic, so he has to be a Shinigami," came the level reply, and he spun back in time to see both figures straightening up, the incense already in place, and the tall redhead rolling up the heavy sack they had brought the food-offerings in.

"Liar," he muttered under his breath, and winced faintly when she spun on him, the noise of her movement covered by the redhead's sudden laughter as he pulled the dark-haired one into a hug.

"I am not lying, you half-brained excuse for a gutter rat!" The whisper was shrill, and both of them froze again, wide eyes shooting to the blessedly retreating pair on the far side of the clearing. The redhead had his arm slung around the dark-haired one's shoulders, and they walked easily together down the path, neither one giving any indication that they had heard the two children.

"One 'a these days, you're gonna get us killed," he sighed weakly, before seizing her wrist and dragging her out of the bush behind him, heading for the food the two visitors had left.

* * *

"Don' exactly wait long, do they?" Abarai Renji smiled softly, his arm a warm weight around Byakuya's shoulders. With a near-silent hum in response, the noble turned his head just enough to catch a glimpse of the two children from the corner of his eye.

They were both young; younger than Rukia by half a century if he was any judge, painfully thin, barefoot and wearing tattered yukata. Both were brown-haired; the girl's dark and neatly braided while the boy's was light and fell in hopeless snarls across the back of his neck.

As Byakuya's eyes flicked over her, the girl raised her head with a frown, arms already laden with the food from the graves. Lavender eyes met dark, holding for a split-second before Byakuya's still-steady pace down the road brought the edge of the hill between them.

* * *

Eyes wide, she fell back to her knees, shaking so badly that the food she'd gathered spilled from her arms and onto the barely-visible rise of dirt beneath her. Her brother's voice, sharp and angry, fell on deaf ears as she curled over her knees, body trembling in terror at the strength in the Shinigami's gaze.

* * *

The walk back into Inuzuri proper was not a long one; the cliffside where Renji's friends were buried overlooked the clustered mass of ill-repaired houses and crooked streets, distance making some of the district's ugliness a little less evident. As they grew closer, though, the ugly details became clear in short order.

First to strike them was the stench; a mingling of molding refuse, open midden-pits, and unwashed bodies, all underscored by the sour scent of desperation and fear. Byakuya grimaced at the scent, taking shallow breaths and struggling not to cough.

It was not the first time he had been to Inuzuri - he and Hisana had not exactly met at a tea party, after all! - but over the past years it had been all to easy to forget the squalor that dominated the sector.

Renji, his arm still steady on Byakuya's shoulders, glanced down at the other man. "Y' a'right?" he asked softly, and Byakuya raised an eyebrow at the weight of the accent in the other man's voice.

"My condition is satisfactory." A pause, not quite hesitant, because he knew his partner now too well to hesitate. "Yours?"

Renji didn't answer for a moment, although his walk never slowed. " 's just... weird, comin' back here. 's not like I left b'hind anythin' that mattered, but..."

" 'A man's history is not easily dismissed.' "

" 'Nor his future easily foreseen,' " Renji smiled, finishing the old proverb. "Hells, that's the truth! If someone'd told me fifty years ago what I'd be t'day..."

Raising his hand, Byakuya gently wrapped his fingers around the heavy hand draped over his shoulder. "Do not think of it. You are what you have become, and that is all that matters. At this moment, our goal is to give any gifted children of this district the same hope that you seized."

* * *

"How much?"

The low, harsh voice dragged Renji out of his unfocused contemplation of the dust-choked street, his attention - focused far outward in the search for untrained reiatsu signatures - snapping back to _then_ and _there. _The man who stood blocking their path was big enough that he'd have given even Zaraki pause - if the mad Captain had possessed a grain of sense, anyway - and ugly enough to give Hollows nightmares.

Beside Renji, Byakuya shifted slightly, and Renji's hand snapped out, wrapping painfully tight around his partner's delicate wrist before Byakuya could speak. The tekkou had been left behind at the manor, and Renji could feel the slickness of long-healed scars under his fingers as he shifted his grip, silently warning Byakuya not to speak.

Schooling his face into an expression of blandly disinterested politeness, Renji shook his head slightly, drawing the big man's attention to himself. "Sorry. Not for sale."

A vague snort that sounded like a bull preparing to charge. "Lie. Remember you, before those marks." Bloodshot eyes traced the lines of the tattoos visible on Renji's forehead and the sides of his neck. "For sale, any night."

Years spent in the Eleventh allowed Renji to translate the grunted remarks into fully-structured sentences without pausing to think, but the statement itself took him back for a moment. This guy... remembered Renji, from a half-century before?

A low growl interrupted his bewilderment, as the stranger pointed a finger nearly the thickness of Byakuya's wrist at Renji. "Remember you, walked streets. Man with cold eyes came. Paid." A brief pause, before a broad smile revealed a mouth full of blackened, rotting teeth. "Fucked you against wall. Tore your face. Made you bleed."

* * *

The memory of pain tore across Renji's mind with such intensity that it left him shaking - _pain in his face, scraping the rough wall he'd been forced against, pain in his shoulders where the man gripped him, pain -_

"Renji!"

Byakuya's voice was sharp, as close to frantic as Renji had heard it since Hueco Mundo, and that in itself jerked him out of his memories with a shuddering gasp of breath. Lavender eyes searched his own, just a fraction too wide for him to dismiss the worry in his partner's voice. "I'm all right," he murmured, forcing the memories aside and back into the dark corners of his mind where he kept all such recollections of pain.

The eyes narrowed in response, just enough to inform Renji that Byakuya did not believe a word of it, before the rough exhale of the man before them turned their attention away again.

One massive hand was half-extended towards them, the diseased mouth open in a vicious grin. "Want one night," the stranger hissed, his dark eyes centering in on Byakuya. "Want make one bleed. Pretty one, fragile one, bruise pretty -" the words broke off with a yelp as Renji pivoted on one heel, snapping a kick that could have shattered stone against the massive wrist.

"Impressive," Byakuya remarked idly, eyebrows raised, as the man stumbled back with a howl of pain.

Renji snorted something that might have passed for a laugh, shaking his head slightly. "You're the one that's been teaching me hand-to-hand."

"It is best to have a working knowledge of multiple forms of combat. One cannot always rely on one's Zanpakutou," Byakuya retorted, and, ignoring the immediate protests from both of the blade-spirits, glanced over Renji's shoulder. "However..."

Renji huffed, cursed under his breath, and drew Zabimaru in a flash of ringing steel.

* * *

Walking through the streets of Inuzuri, it was common to see the male residents - lean and hard-eyed, having surrendered themselves to the cruelty of their home - lounging in the doorways of the rotting buildings or sprawled across any available, roughly flat surface. And although they would watch any passersby with narrowed gazes, it was rare that any of them would stir from their place for the sake of a stranger. Usually, the only things that could induce the men from their places was the promise of food, sex, or money, though perhaps not in that order.

Unless a sword was drawn.

That, the cold ring of steel leaving a sheath, was all it took to pull the men to their feet, weapons in their hands and rabid-dog grins of eager anticipation crossing their faces as they ringed the potential fighters, hungry for the excitement of violence and blood.

* * *

A scream tore through the air.

His face set and emotionless, Renji watched with blank eyes as a battered, rusted wakizashi dropped to the dusty ground, landing only a short distance from the hand that had been wielding it seconds before. An arc of blood, brilliant in the midday sun, traced a dark line across the ground.

Still shrieking, the stranger fell back, clutching desperately at the stump of his wrist as he staggered backwards, knocking his way through the circle of gathered men. He'd pulled the short blade from his sleeve when Renji had first kicked him back, and his furious charge had brought him nearly within arm's reach of the redheaded Captain before Zabimaru had cleaved through his wrist.

Scowling, Renji shifted his stance, his eyes remaining fixed on the man even as he widened his perception to include the others now ringing them. Very slowly, he lowered Zabimaru until the blade's tip nearly dragged the ground, drops of blood catching the light as they fell. "Not here to fight," he said sharply, and was answered by a broken chorus of jeering laughter.

Behind his shoulder, he could feel Byakuya moving, every lean muscle in that slender body coming alive as he prepared to do battle. Even though Senbonzakura had been left back at the manor, Renji felt little concern for Byakuya's safety; he was one of the few people who had ever dared face the noble Captain in hand-to-hand combat, and even his greater weight and reach couldn't give him enough advantage to beat Byakuya. Delicate though he may have looked, the smaller man was deadly.

A flash of movement caught his eye, and he raised his blade just in time to deflect the blow aimed at his throat.

* * *

Komamura Sajin blinked once and raised his head, ears flicking absently as he looked towards the surge of reiatsu in the distance.

"Captain?" His fifth seat looked up at him, the skin between his eyebrows creasing slightly. "Is everything all right?"

A low rumble, not quite a growl, echoed from the enormous Captain's chest as he considered his answer. "No," he answered finally, his tone considering. "Can you not feel it?"

The fifth seat cocked his head faintly, as though he were struggling to listen to a distant sound. "I don't sense anything out of the ordinary, Taichou," the he answered after a moment, his tone apologetic, but Komamura shook his head in response. The pulse of reiatsu was low, but easy enough for him to identify - that particular taste of cinnamon flame could only be Abarai Renji and his Zanpakutou.

"No matter. Follow me," he answered, tone steady, and made the leap to Flashstep before most of his patrol could react. Several profanities reached his sensitive ears as his men scrambled after him, leaving District fifty-nine behind them as they moved.

* * *

A blade flashed in the corner of Renji's perception, and Zabimaru swung to block it before the strike could reach its target, trapping the battered sword and driving its point against the ground. Renji followed up by slamming his shoulder into the man's exposed side, sending his opponent stumbling away to trip over one of his fallen fellows. The man went down cursing, and two more immediately took his place.

Zabimaru's wide arc took down another man with a deep cut to the shoulder as Byakuya kicked his own attacker away, both Shinigami fighting to keep the wounds to their opponents non-lethal. These were not Hollows that they fought, merely desperate and angry men, and they did not deserve death for their actions.

Unfortunately, the mob surrounding them did not have the same restraint. They were fighting to kill; perhaps hoping that the two might be carrying something of value that they could steal and sell, perhaps recognizing them as the Shinigami that they blamed for all their troubles.

Perhaps just wanting something to take their anger out on.

Renji lashed out again, silently cursing the tight-packed crowd that he fought in. Neither his nor Byakuya's technique was not suited to fighting in confined spaces, and while both of them were holding their own with little difficulty, they were also making very little progress. Snarling, Renji drove Zabimaru forward, the still-sealed blade tearing through the muscles in a thigh before the backswing arched up, cutting across the ribs of another. Behind him, he could sense Byakuya, moving easily through the flurry of attacks as though it was a dance, his every step and shift and blow perfectly choreographed.

Until a lucky blow by a dagger-wielding opponent that was already on the dirt stabbed into Byakuya's ankle.

It took less than a heartbeat for the scent of cherry blossoms to touch the stagnant breeze.

Renji froze in place, Zabimaru pulled against his chest in a guard position, and watched as the faint glints of light began to appear.

* * *

The offices of the Tenth Division were unusually quiet.

It was not the tense, worried silence that shrouded the barracks whenever the young Captain's fury was roused, but an oddly peaceful calm that saw the officers padding about the building with faint smiles on their faces as they went about their duties.

Within the Captain's office, the gentle silence was broken only by the dual whispers of brushes over paper and the occasional rattle of moving parchment. Hitsugaya, ever-present behind his desk, moved through paperwork with his usual rapid efficiency, even the occasional sip of tea taken from the cup at his elbow not breaking his pace.

On the other side of the room, Matsumoto was, surprisingly, at her own desk, head bent over paperwork. Her brush did not quite match the rapid speed of her Captain's; she was, after all, far less familiar with the forms she was completing - but moved steadily nonetheless.

A full week had passed since Hitsugaya had trailed his Lieutenant into Rukongai, bearing witness to the greatest - and perhaps only - secret the woman had ever kept. Six days since he had dragged her over an emotional roller-coaster to force the secret from her, becoming the first Shinigami to learn of Gin and Rangiku's daughter.

Three days since the papers had arrived back from the Academy, bearing with them a letter of welcome addressed to Matsumoto Kin.

The letter was still sitting on the corner of his desk.

It would have been perfectly acceptable for him to send it into Rukongai via courier, but Hitsugaya found himself oddly reluctant to leave the news to such an impersonal delivery.

Part of that might have stemmed from the abrupt change the letter had wrought in his Lieutenant; gone were the complaints and shirking that he had grown so accustomed to in the months before he learned her secret. Although Rangiku still arrived late, still drank and napped during the workday, those bad habits had diminished by an almost alarming degree. Paperwork was actually completed in between much-reduced rounds of sake, the duration of her naps could be calculated in minutes instead of hours, and the entirety of her desk was no longer buried under an avalanche-threat of unfinished work.

Rangiku made a point now of arriving no more than half an hour after she was scheduled to do so - which was quite early by Rangiku standards - and the pair of them worked quietly at the towering stacks of paperwork until lunchtime. They would take a break by wordless agreement, venturing in separate directions for lunch - he to the Mess, she into the city for more entertaining, or perhaps palatable, fare.

It was after one such lunch that Hitsugaya looked up from finishing the last few sheets of paperwork and asked quietly, "How often do you visit her?"

Matsumoto, at her desk, yelped and jumped slightly at the sound of her Captain's voice, splattered ink across the paper she'd been working on, swore under her breath, and frantically blotted the page with the sleeve of her shihakusho.

"Matsumoto?"

"Sorry, Captain, you startled me! What was the question, again?"

Biting back the urge to smile, Hitsugaya repeated himself, and received a startled blink of china-blue eyes as his Lieutenant moved the ruined form aside and focused her attention on him.

"I usually visit her twice a week, and I was planning to go down tonight. Would you like to come?"

"I believe," Hitsugaya answered levelly, glancing briefly at the letter on the corner of his desk, "that I would."

Genuine for the first time in decades, Matsumoto's smile lit up the room.

* * *

When Matsumoto was not drunk and he was not skulking through shadows in her wake, the trip to the twenty-third district had an infinitely more pleasant feel to it. No longer concerned with detection, they made the trip in Flashstep, whittling a two-hour journey down to the merest of minutes.

Daylight did little to change the complexion of the house; it was still a sound and tidy structure, given its location, and Matsumoto strode to the door without hesitating, Hitsugaya moving silently at her side, his already-light footfalls muffled on the dusty grass.

The echoes of Matsumoto's knock hadn't even faded before the door was yanked back, allowing Rei to glower out at the pair of them. Her bleary eyes flicked to Matsumoto first, a sneer curling her upper lip before her gaze flicked down to Hitsugaya.

"What's this?" she demanded sharply, glaring at him as though the force of her anger would burn him away. "More of your bastard offspring?"

This close to the old woman, Hitsugaya could smell the scent of opium that clung to her like a rancid veil. Biting his tongue to keep from curling his lip in disgust, Hitsugaya stepped forward, raising a hand to Matsumoto as she opened her mouth to reply.

"I," he replied with profound dignity, "am Hitsugaya Toushirou, Captain of the Tenth Division of the Thirteen Gotei Squads, wielder of Hyorinmaru." Deeper within the house, he could hear the startled murmurs breaking out; it was easy enough to hear the words 'prodigy' and 'legend' among the whispers.

Rei let out a huff of irritation, turning away from the pair on her doorstep to shout deeper into the room. "They've come for you, traitor's brat! The Shinigami are here to lock you away like they did your father!" The words ended with a cackle of what sounded like cold triumph, and Hitsugaya fought back his own temper as well as Hyorinmaru's as he pushed through the doorway.

The room was cavernously large by Rukon standards, taking up almost two-thirds of the house's large bottom floor and nearly equal to the size of Hitsugaya's own quarters. Although virtually devoid of furniture, it was immaculately clean and brighter than one might have expected, light pouring in through the unshuttered windows. The room's inhabitants - a dozen children of varying ages - were clustered near the bright windows on a collection of pillows, watching the door with wide eyes.

A few paces away from the rest of the group, Matsumoto Kin sat by herself, black scarf tied securely over her hair and a book in her hand. She had looked up at Rei's shout, and her gaze turned now to Rangiku, then Hitsugaya, taking in the pristinely white Captain's haori and the bright gleam of Hyorinmaru's guard, visible over Hitsugaya's shoulder.

There was no fear in her eyes, only the same weary resignation that showed on Rangiku's face any time Gin's name was mentioned. Without a word, Kin closed the book and set it aside, rising silently to her feet before offering a deep, polite bow to the two Shinigami.

Rangiku's voice was gentle. "Go gather up your things, Kin."

The girl nodded, still silent, and ducked out the door at the back of the room. Within seconds, her footsteps could be heard dashing up a staircase behind the wall.

Her mouth set, Rangiku turned to the wide-eyed cluster of children still watching them from the far wall. "Please have Kin meet us outside when she comes back down."

The oldest of the children - a dark-haired boy with a scar that ran from the corner of his eye all the way to his jaw - caught her eyes and nodded once, sharply. "We'll tell her, Rangiku-san."

"Thank you, Hiro," Rangiku nodded. To Hitsugaya, she added softly, "Come on, Captain. We should wait outside."

He almost questioned that, until he saw old Rei watching them, her bloodshot eyes narrowed at Matsumoto. The old woman was wearing a black yukata with cyan flowers around the hem; while the robe itself was cotton, the sash tying it around her wide waist was silk.

Behind Hitsugaya, another one of the children, thin and shy, wearing a yukata too worn for the original pattern to be determined, whispered a half-broken 'Matsumoto-san?', and the Lieutenant smiled gently over her shoulder as she crossed the room to the door.

Wordlessly, Hitsugaya turned and followed her back out of the bright, warm room, all but choking on his fury.

* * *

In all his years in the Gotei, Komamura had witnessed the true power of Senbonzakura only twice.

Even without having witnessed it, though, he would have willingly said that it was as majestic and powerful as any blade within the Thirteen Squads.

What he had not until now realized, however, was how _precise_ it could also be.

Rounding the corner of a derelict building anchoring the corner of an Inuzuri street, he felt his eyes widen at the sight; Abarai Renji and Kuchiki Byakuya, both blood-spattered and sweat-sheened, stood surrounded by the bodies of their fallen foes. At first glance, it looked like the scene of a slaughter, but... none of the men were dead.

Over a hundred defeated men surrounded the two Captains, many of them bleeding from tiny, precise wounds that could only have come from the noble's blade.

"Hoy, Komamura-taichou!" Renji called, raising a hand in acknowledgement. Komamura nodded in response, and had half-turned to speak to his fifth-seat when a he caught a flash of movement with the corner of his eye.

One man had apparently hidden himself, out of the way of the fighting, waiting until the battle had died down before he made his move. But he made it now, leaping from with one of the crumbling houses lining the street, naked blade gleaming in his hand as he lunged for the two wearied Shinigami.

There was no hesitation in Renji's hands; Zabimaru flashed upwards, ready to deal a strike, until -

_Thock_.

_Thud_.

Renji blinked. Slowly lowered his blade. Blinked again. Stared. Finally, "Who threw that?" he demanded, stepping forward to toe the fist-sized rock that had hurtled from between two buildings to catch the man squarely in the back of the head.

There was a long moment of silence before a girl's voice, sharp in a whisper, hissed from the shadows, "I _told_ you they were Shinigami!"

* * *

"How can you stand to leave her with that woman?" Hitsugaya demanded as soon as the door was shut behind them. The reek of opium, the rotund body in a virtually-new yukata, while the children stood by, underfed and dressed in castoffs, while Matsumoto and gods knew how many other women sent money to support the children?

"It may not seem like it, Captain," Matsumoto answered sadly, "but Rei is the best guardian for these children."

Disbelief twisted his stomach in a nauseating surge. "How can you say that? How can you even _think_ that?"

"Captain," Rangiku began firmly, "you grew up in Junrinan, and you had your grandmother to shelter you. You never had to witness the things that Gin and I did, living in the upper districts. You never saw children left with caretakers at orphanages or children's homes in good conscience, only to be handed off to workhouses or child brothels." Eyes flashing, Matsumoto shook her head. "Rei may speak cruelly to the children, but she has never raised a hand against them. The work she has them do is to keep the house clean and in good repair, nothing more, and when they go to bed at night, it is on their own pallet, not in the hands of some stranger who only wants a child's body."

Matsumoto's voice broke on the last words, her body trembling at something like remembered pain. Instantly, Hitsugaya clenched his teeth, feeling guilt twist within his stomach. His Lieutenant was one of the few people who could inspire such feelings in him, and he did not relish the sensation.

"I apologize, Matsumoto. I should not have questioned your judgement in the matter."

Weary blue eyes lifted to meet his, a tired smile creasing the skin at their corners. "You are hardly the first, Captain."

"That doesn't make it any more -"

"Rangiku-san?"

Startled, both Shinigami turned towards the sound of the nervous whisper.

The child was barely more than a toddler, gender indeterminate beneath an oversized yukata and a good helping of dirt. Huge dark eyes, already swimming with tears, peered out at them from under an unkept fringe of black bangs. The sleeves of the worn grey yukata were long enough to cover the child's hands, making the grip on the much-repaired stuffed animal awkward and unsure.

"Kyo-chan," Matsumoto replied, dropping unhesitatingly to one knee and opening her arms to the child, who flew into her grasp and curled against her side, trembling.

"Shinigami gonna... take Kin-nee-san away, Rangiku-san?" Kyo whispered, as Matsumoto gently stroked the dark head, slowly rocking the child back and forth.

"Let me tell you a secret," she whispered softly into the child's ear. "And you can tell all the other kids, but you have to promise that nobody will tell Rei-baa-san, okay?"

"Okay," came the hiccuped response. "Promise. Tell?"

"We are taking Kin away," Matsumoto explained softly. "But she's not going to be punished for what her daddy did. She's going to go to school, and she's going to learn to be a Shinigami like me and Hitsugaya-taichou, so that she can be strong and protect people."

A sniff, and one tattered sleeve came up to wipe across damp eyes. "Really?" the child whispered, eyes wide as - she? - blinked up at Rangiku. "Kin gonna be a Shinigami?"

"Really," Matsumoto confirmed, nodding gently, and the child considered that for a minute more before wiggling her way out of Matsumoto's grasp, then turning to face the door of the house. "Hear, Kin? You hear?"

Standing on the threshold of the house, a small, battered pack slung over her shoulder, Matsumoto Kin nodded shakily, tears brimming in her eyes. Too overwhelmed to speak, she gave a single, soft gasp of laughter, the sound pure joyous relief.

She had her mother's smile.

* * *

"...an' Michi always says that th' Shinigami are always nobles, an' they don' let Rukon trash like us in," the brown-haired boy (" 'm Haru, an' tha's m' sister, Ko,") explained, scowling darkly under his unkempt hair.

"Michi's spending all his time at the bottom of a bottle these days," Ko countered, the argument long and often repeated.

His expression thoughtful, Byakuya threw a questioning glance towards Renji, who merely shook his head and shrugged.

"I am afraid your Michi-san is quite mistaken," Byakuya said slowly. "Out of our thirteen Captains, four - Kenpachi of the Eleventh, Hitsugaya of the Tenth, Hisagi of the Ninth, and Captain Abarai of the Fifth -" here, he gestured to Renji, who nodded slightly, shifting his weight as he leaned back against a pile of broken barrels, "were all originally citizens of Rukongai. The same holds true for nearly half our Lieutenants."

Two sets of wide eyes swung instantly towards Renji. "You're a _Captain_?" Haru half-squawked, torn between awe and incredulity. "But you're... _Rukon_!"

"Not just Rukon, kid," Renji snorted in response. "I'm Inuzuri."

When only silent astonishment answered him, he nodded towards the hillside, barely visible above the line of the rooftops. "The graves were we laid offerings - those were my friends, fifty years ago."

Haru squirmed uncomfortably at the thought, but his sister leaned forward, her eyes intent.

"Then Michi is lying," Ko said softly, and Renji nodded shortly in her direction.

"The question then becomes," Byakuya murmured, "whether he lies through ignorance or intention."

"Oh, if he's lyin', s' on purpose all right," Haru grumbled, shuffling one hand across his tangled hair. " 's a guy that comes 'round his house a lot. Brings bottles of stuff with 'im."

"You believe that your Michi is being bribed to lie about the Shinigami?" Byakuya pressed, one eyebrow raising, and the boy shrugged, ducking his head in response.

"How 'm I supposed t' know? Guy comes 'round, Michi gets his drink, that's all. Don't get close enough to see more."

"That is best," Byakuya replied quietly, rising to his feet. On the other side of the ally, Renji followed suit, pushing himself up off the stack of broken barrels he'd been leaning against. "We must leave, but I wish you to promise me something."

"Promises ain't free," Haru grumbled, then hissed as Ko brought her heel down on the top of his foot.

"What do you want us to do, Shinigami-san?" she asked, shooting her brother a glare when he opened his mouth to object.

"I wish for you to tell people the truth," Byakuya said simply, startling both the children and Renji. "Do so quietly, but tell them that to be Shinigami is not a right of blood, but of strength, will, and heart."

When Haru only glared, mutinous, Byakuya raised an eyebrow before adding, "Do so, and you will be rewarded for your services. It will not overburden my kitchens to provide food for a pair of children."

Haru's grin flashed wide, but Ko's gaze narrowed as it fixed on the noble. "Who are you?" she demanded softly. "What is your name, Shinigami-san?"

"My identity is not important," Byakuya replied dismissively, already turning away. "Food will be brought to you weekly, at the gravesite. Let's go, Renji."

Nodding in response, Renji automatically fell in beside Byakuya's shoulder, following his partner's steady strides out of the alley and back to the street, where Komamura was overseeing his Squad's cleanup of the battle.

"I feel like we should apologize," Renji began, but the wolf-Captain shook his head in response.

"It is no matter, Abarai-taichou. As you well know, riots are not uncommon in this area of Rukongai. Your and Kuchiki-taichou's names will be omitted from the reports."

"That is greatly appreciated, Komamura-taichou," Byakuya nodded. "I am afraid Renji and I are due elsewhere. Do you have any objections to our departure?"

A grunt to the negative answered him. Dipping his head in reply, Byakuya motioned to Renji, and the pair of them leaped into Shunpo, headed for Seireitei and the Kuchiki manor.

"All right, spill," Renji snapped, when they were far enough from Inuzuri that not even Komamura's hypersensitive ears would overhear them. "What gives with you not wantin' those kids to know your name? You gave 'em mine quick enough!"

"I do not mean to offend," Byakuya answered levelly. "I have a theory on the identity of the person bribing this Michi -"

"An' you need your name kept under wraps 'till you do some investigating?" Renji guessed, and received a sharp nod in response.

"I believe we may be pursuing a familiar face," Byakuya confessed, his mouth set. "Such subterfuge would benefit only the egos of the noble clans, and there are few who harbor a deep enough grudge to see it through."

* * *

It was easy enough for him to slip away from the patrol squad, busy swarming through the streets of Inuzuri. He kept his head down as he worked, knowing that none of the members of that beast Komamura's squad would understand the sneer fixed on his face. The Seventh collected outcasts and rejects; the true strength of the Seireitei, the nobility, would never subject itself to being lead by an animal, whether it wore the guise of a wolf or the Eleventh's madman.

It took a few risky steps for him to escape the patrol unit without notice - no worse, however, than he had taken to join it. It was easy enough for him to slip in and out of the groups of Shinigami; call it a side-effect of his unique gift: averageness.

Everything about him was entirely unremarkable. His hair and eyes were dark brown, his height and build utterly average, his face completely nondescript. Absolutely nothing in his appearance or demeanor served to make an impression on anyone he passed.

He was not a Shinigami, but the shihakusho he wore fit him well, and the katana at his waist was easily passed off as a weak Zanpakutou. It took no effort at all for him to blend in with the thousands of them already in Seireitei.

Reaching his Master's house did not take long; although not a Shinigami, he had enough reiatsu to muster a passable Flashstep, a blessing that he rarely disregarded.

The Master's servant met him on the veranda of the small house, bowing a brief greeting and informing him that the Master would speak to him. Something in the servant's eyes, though... that closed-off look that the servant got when Master was angry, when the servant tried not to offend him least he be beaten.

Swallowing nervously, the agent stepped inside.

His Master sat, his seiza perfect, on a plush pillow atop the dais at the far end of the room. The low table in front of him was spread with heavy parchment and a collection of fine inks and brushes, the tools of a calligrapher.

Falling to his knees, the agent crawled across the polished wooden floor, not daring to raise his head in Master's presence.

"Well, Tsutomu?" came Master's voice, steady and calm, and the agent risked a glance upwards, peering up at his master's beautiful face. Pale, delicate features, framed by shining hair the color of deep stormclouds, and eyes like black gems.

"Masa-sama..."


	7. Sentimentality and Storms

Timeline Notes: Because even _I'm_ getting confused by this, a quick rundown to keep everything in order. Bonds of Honor picks up with Ichigo and Rukia's wedding two years after RDBH leaves off. Six months after that, Ishida and Orihime get married. We're now at the three-and-a-half year mark post RDBH, right about at Ishihime's first wedding anniversary, so, yes, there has been a(nother) time jump.

And why is it that the Quincy keep showing up and promptly _lighting_ up? Again, Author's PSA, smoking = smelly and stupid.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter Seven: Sentimentality and Storms

* * *

"You're getting sentimental."

A disgusted snort answered him. "And you're becoming delusional. This has nothing to do with sentimentality."

"Of course not," Isshin snickered. "Every man that buys a house for his son does so just because he's bored with having money in the bank."

The familiar, frigid glare from behind the glasses didn't phase Isshin in the least, not that Ryuuken had expected it to. The ex-Shinigami Captain had all the sensitivity of a rhinoceros.

"Don't be mad at _me_ because you've started caring again."

A particularly dull rhinoceros, at that.

"I just think it's sweet that you've finally started expressing your boundless love for your precious son!"

Make that an absolutely _imbecilic_ rhinoceros. Which was going to be soundly perforated if it didn't learn to shut its mouth. "Isshin, you must have a penchant for masochism that is equal to Kisuke's."

A snicker. "Oh, yes, I do. Punish me, Ryuuken-sam -ack!" A rapid tumble to the floor prevented the glowing arrow from striking its intended target - Isshin's left ear - and left it embedded in the wall instead. Both men stared at the arrow for a long moment before Isshin climbed to his feet again, his expression utterly serious, and asked, "How do you explain all the holes in the wall to building maintenance?"

His face expressionless, Ryuuken drew a silver cigarette case out of the pocket of his coat and flicked it open. "I tell them my pencil sharpener malfunctions."

Which made less than no sense for multiple reasons, the least of which being the fact that there wasn't even a pencil sharpener in the office. Ryuuken was a perfectionist; he always used pen.

"And they buy that?" Isshin countered incredulously, watching as the arrow slowly dissolved into component particles that drifted back towards its creator.

"Hardly. They simply know better than to question the word of the man signing their paychecks."

"So it's less them buying it and more you buying them."

"Vulgar, but accurate." Rolling his chair backwards a few feet, Ryuuken unfastened the latch on the window and shoved the glass open, letting the smoke from his now-lit cigarette drift outward. "Why are you even here?"

Sighing, Isshin flopped back into the chair he'd been occupying before the arrow had narrowly missed repiercing his ear for him. "I told you. I wanted to congratulate you on buying the house for Uryuu and Orihime."

"I would think you would be better off congratulating them, as they'll be the ones receiving it."

Isshin snorted. "I can't congratulate my oldest mortal friend for remembering what emotions are?"

The second arrow was dodged much more casually than the first - he didn't even come close to falling out of the chair, which meant Ryuuken was either losing his touch or not trying very hard. And Ryuuken would certainly never let Isshin see if he were losing his touch.

"It was merely a gesture of practicality. Uryuu's apartment is too small to support two people, and as he has refused to take the stipend offered by the Seireitei -"

Isshin snorted. It had been less a case of 'refused' and more 'told the Central 46 to go stuff their purses up their respective arseholes.' "Damn prideful Quincy."

An oh-so-dignified huff answered him. "It's only right. It would be unseemly for one of our people to be bought off by the Seireitei's funds."

"You're just jealous because your son actually _could_ make a living working with the dead."

The third arrow actually _did_ necessitate falling out of the chair to avoid, so the remark had obviously hit a nerve.

"As I was saying," Ryuuken continued calmly, dematerializing his bow yet again with barely a blink, "Uryuu's apartment is no longer sufficient for his needs, and he is certainly unable to upgrade his living conditions while pursuing a medical degree. I would be remiss in my obligations as a father if I did not see he and his wife adequately housed."

" 'Remiss in your obligations'?" Isshin sputtered, prying his nose out of the carpet once again. "Can't you just admit that you want him to be happy?"

"Wishing him to be happy would require familiarity with the emotion," Ryuuken answered flatly, crushing his half-smoked cigarette against the cement ledge outside the window.

Isshin sighed gustily as he shoved his way to his feet and turned for the door. "Whose turn is it to bring drinks this Friday?"

"Yours, of course. We went through two bottles of my best brandy last week, and I expect you to return in kind."

Laughing softly to himself, Isshin waved his agreement over his shoulder as he left. He always agreed to the arrangements, although they were hardly fair; he'd given Ryuuken that brandy last Christmas.

* * *

"...and the circadian rhythms can naturally be altered over a course of days or weeks..."

"..._by channelling multiple small streams of your reiatsu into the blade, rather than one concentrated burst..."_

"...by gradually shifting back the time you go to sleep and allowing yourself..."

"..._you allow yourself greater control over the amount of power placed in and generated by..."_

"...to sleep later in the morning - but not through my class, Kurosaki!"

"Huh?" Jerking his consciousness sharply out of his inner world - ignoring Zangetsu's raised eyebrow and his Hollow's shriek of laughter - Ichigo blinked up at his scowling teacher, an expression of mystified bewilderment on his face. "Circadian rhythms. Altering them. I wasn't asleep, Tamo-sensei."

The professor gave him a skeptical glare, but turned back to the front of the room, gathering up a piece of chalk, scrawling the words 'Alpha Waves' and 'Delta Waves' across the surface of the blackboard.

Scowling himself, Ichigo slouched a little lower in his seat and began scribbling notes.

"Playing with your sword again, Kurosaki?" came the low murmur from the desk beside his, and Ichigo shot a narrow-eyed glare towards his seatmate.

"Oh, shut the hell up," he whispered back, yanking his notebook back to the center of his desk a little more sharply than necessary and jabbing at it with his pen.

Not in the least put off, Ishida Uryuu cast a brief smirk at his friend before turning his attention back to the board, good and proper student that he was. The white-gold ring on his left hand glinted faintly as he turned over a clean page in his notebook, and it struck Ichigo, not for the first time, how bizarre it was that Uryuu was actually married.

The first time he'd met the other boy, the very notion of the Quincy being a happily married man would have left him spasming on the ground in paroxysms of laughter. But somehow, Orihime's influence had melted Uryuu's unflappable cold, leaving him, if not a warmer person, than at least a bit more human. The fact that he was willing to make crude jokes about Zangetsu's longwinded lectures was proof enough that.

* * *

An hour later, as they were both sitting down to lunch, Ichigo felt the familiar dull, static-like burn start at the back of his skull. Glancing across the table, he saw Ishida's head lift, a familiar sharpness entering the narrow blue eyes.

"You feel it too." It wasn't a question - it hardly needed to be. Ishida's capacity for sensing reiatsu had always been greater than Ichigo's, and the Hollow was strong enough that even a weak Shinigami wouldn't have had trouble detecting it. Probably not a Menos, but not terribly far off, either.

When Uryuu merely shot him a glare and shoved at his glasses, Ichigo grimaced a vague apology and changed the subject. "Who's on duty tonight?"

There was a momentary pause while Uryuu dug his cell phone from his pocket and called up the calender. A few quick rolls brought him to the answer; "Tatsuki and Mizuiro."

"Tatsuki?" Ichigo repeated, blinking. "Thought she was off rotations for planning her ceremony..."

"Kiego has the flu, Sado's out of town, and you and I are here. She had to take over - the last rotation of Shinigami trainees went home three days ago, and we're not expecting the next batch until Tuesday. I don't think there's any cause for concern, though. They've handled stronger than this before."

"Mmph." His mouth already full, Ichigo nodded slightly. "Wasn't worried, just confused," he answered as best he could around a mouthful of rice. "They'll be fine."

"Your manners are repulsive, Kurosaki," Ishida informed him wearily, shoving his phone back in his pocket. While it had begun as formality, the duty roster had quickly become a necessity as the group began their individual lives.

Ichigo and Uryuu were both attending college with an eye towards medical school - Uryuu because he was genuinely interested in medicine and helping people, Ichigo largely because it was expected of him. The courses he was taking were interesting and the material was a enough to be challenging, and it kept his father happy.

And quite frankly, he wasn't hurting for money. Although he'd struggled upon first returning from the Seireitei to the Living World, several of the Captains - no doubt led by Urahara and Ukitake - had banded together and forced through a vote that gave Ichigo and his 'team' in Karakura a generous monthly stipend in return for their part in keeping the city clear of Hollows. It had astounded Ichigo to learn that the money - more than enough to live off of, supporting both his apartment lease and his college classes with plenty to spare - wasn't even half of a Captain's monthly salary in Seireitei.

Ichigo used his to secure a comfortable apartment not far from the college, large enough for both himself and Rukia, when she was able to leave her Lieutenant's duties behind long enough to come back to the Living World. After the War, Ichigo's life had gone from revolving around the frantic pace of Seireitei's disasters to busy but oddly routine, and adjusting had been... strange. His weekdays were now spent in classes, alternate evenings on Hollow patrol, and whenever he wasn't tackling his coursework or randomly-appearing Hollows, he worked weekends in a dojo that Tatsuki now owned.

Nobody - with the possible exception of Tatsuki herself - was surprised with the success of the dojo. Bulldog tenacity and good common sense, honed by a business degree, kept the dojo's finances in perfect order, while Tatsuki's own skill and dedication to martial arts made her a respected master. Although her intensity was enough to intimidate some of her students, a few 'coaching sessions' with Orihime - herself in school to become a kindergarten teacher - helped Tatsuki learn to tone down her usually fierce responses. Ichigo taught a few hand-to-hand courses and a kendo class on the weekends, and frequently dragged the rest of the 'Karakura Crew' along, insisting that they be able to fight in every feasible style.

Tatsuki wasn't especially gifted at kendo, but she was proficient enough to at least hold the match for a minute or two against Ichigo using almost all of his skills. Mizuiro made a general point of ignoring Ichigo's directives in learning to fight, but on the rare occasion that Ichigo had dragged him into the kendo lessons, he fought like the sword was an extension of his hand. Kiego, despite being a mid-to-long-range fighter simply by the nature of his powers, had taken to kendo lessons well. He was better than Tatsuki, and, while no match for Ichigo or Mizuiro, wasn't any sort of embarrassment in the dojo, either.

Outside of the dojo had been something of a different story. Kiego had spent as long as possible - two and a half years following Ichigo's return - drifting aimlessly, mostly to annoy his sister. It was entirely by accident that she had one day found him toying with a few lines of code in a computer game, trying to improve his character stats, realized after several minutes of berating him for wasting time that he'd actually _hacked_ the game in order to access the codes. Momentarily stunned, Mizuho had stared at him for a long moment, her expression thoughtful, before turning and leaving the room without another word.

It had been rather annoying for Kiego to discover the next day that she had signed him up for a battery of computer courses at the local college, determined to have him put his skills to use. Now, after his first year, his teachers were hailing him as a computer genius, and he was quietly developing plans for his own game. It had been a bemused Mizuiro's suggestion that Kiego ask Chad for help with the soundtrack of the game once it became a reality.

Chad had returned to his interest in music. Although the band he'd originally been part of had long since dispersed, about a year after returning from Hueco Mundo, he managed to find a local group who was desperately in need of both a bass player and an experienced guiding hand. Chad had managed to fill both roles, calling on the few contacts he'd made while he'd been playing with his old band to get the new group - ironically named Dark Soul - playing local gigs on odd nights.

That was, at least, until six months after Uryuu and Orihime's wedding, when Mizuiro, bored and dateless for the night, had finally attended one of the group's shows.

Although he said very little to the band at the time, he'd approached Chad the next morning and said, quite simply, 'You guys are brilliant and need to be famous."

Within forty-eight hours, Mizuiro had appointed himself the band's manager and was making Dark Soul's presence known by calling on his own - significantly more impressive - contacts. In under a week, the entirety of Karakura knew the group's whole repertoire of songs and every bar and backwater dive they played was crammed to capacity.

It had taken two weeks to land a record deal, and Mizuiro was quite annoyed that it hadn't happened sooner.

Most of Chad's days were now spent either on the road or at the recording studio, his weekends onstage before sellout crowds in cities scattered across Japan - not overseas, not yet - but his nights, the ones that weren't crammed into a bunk in a tour bus, were spent with Tatsuki.

Uryuu and Orihime's engagement announcement at Rukia and Ichigo's wedding had set the tone for what would quickly become tradition for their small group, an odd mingling of shared joy and one-upmanship. One couple's event would play host to another pair's happy news; Ishida and Orihime's announcement at Ichigo's wedding wasn't quite surpassed by Tatsuki's announcement during Ishida's reception that she and Chad were dating.

Six months after that, however, at Ichigo and Rukia's first-anniversary party, Chad going down on one knee in the middle of the room to propose to Tatsuki had shocked everyone. The last few weeks had seen everyone involved coordinating their lives and duty shifts around a muddle of wedding plans, musical recordings, and college and martial arts classes, as well as increasingly frequent Hollow activity.

"I had hoped that the schedule for the training groups would be a little more... cohesive," Uryuu commented after a moment, frowning at his own lunch as Ichigo choked on a too-large bite of food, coughed, swallowed, and coughed again. "We're being left with significant gaps."

The suggestion for the training groups had been Shuuhei's, originally. With Karakura still, years after the war, managing to attract far more Hollows than a city that size rightfully should have, it was a perfect testing and proving ground for inexperienced Shinigami. It hadn't taken a great deal of argument to convince the rest of the Captains to agree to the idea; any idea of Shuuhei's generally gained the support of Kira and Renji fairly quickly, provided it was sound. Renji's support meant that Byakuya and Rukia - and therefore Ukitake - were often willing to stand behind the proposal as well. Ukitake's endorsement meant that Kyouraku's followed, Urahara would usually agree for the sake of annoying Soifon, and Hitsugaya would grumble his assent without explanation.

The motion - further supported by Unohana and Komamura - had passed without question.

Seireitei had managed to acquire ownership of a small apartment complex near the center of the city, and set up a permanent Senkaimon - much like the one in the basement of the Shoten - in a a corner of the lobby. When things were running optimally, a new group of seven Shinigami - five inexperienced, two seasoned - would come through every week on steady rotation. The reality, however, was that things very rarely ran optimally; injuries sustained during Hollow fights meant officers were getting swapped in and out, occasionally suffering breakdowns, blow-ups, or similar upheavals that generally tended to throw things like schedules to the winds.

The most recent severe attack - an Adjuchas-class Hollow that had appeared four days previous - had wounded six of the seven, leaving only the senior officer - Hisagi's tenth-seat - uninjured, and although Orihime had quickly been summoned to heal them, the entire group had been recalled to Seireitei to give their reports, leaving a significant gap in the assistance that the Karakura team had been relying on.

* * *

The dojo was quiet in the early afternoon; the adult's morning classes had long since left, and it would be a few more hours before the children began showing up for their afterschool classes.

The office at the back of the dojo, with cream-colored walls and a broad window that was perpetually covered with sheer off-white curtains, was always a peaceful retreat, silence usually only broken by the soft hum of the laptop computer sitting open in the middle of the desk.

At the moment, however, the arhythmic, stilted tapping of keys overrode the whisper of the computer's fan. Tatsuki, a half-eaten sandwich in her left hand and typing only with her right, glowered at the screen as she updated her bookkeeping records for the week. There was no good reason for the irritation splayed across her face; even without the more-than-generous stipend from Seireitei, the dojo would have provided enough money for her to live comfortably, if not easily. She could, and did, easily afford to employ one full-time assistant and two additional teachers, one of whom was Ichigo.

Despite any reservations she may have had, her old friend was proving to be an amazing teacher. Perhaps it was a skill he'd gained when he'd taken Captaincy of the Third for a short time, now over three years ago, or maybe it was just a previously undiscovered talent. Either way, Ichigo - married or not - was building up a devoted group of student fans.

Kendo had never been so popular amongst a female population.

The sharp buzz of the cellphone in her breast pocket jerked her out of her musings - the ugly, familiar buzz that she was only too well acquainted with. Cursing around her mouthful of sandwich, she dropped the remainder of it back on her plate and dragged the phone out, flipping it open to look at the map on the screen even as she leapt from her chair. The black indicator dot was half a mile from the dojo; not particularly far, but the green blip that represented Mizuiro was, for some reason, closer to the Hollow than she was.

Each member of the 'Karakura Team' was equipped with an identical cellphone; all of the latest features, as well as some that regular consumer phones couldn't brag of quite yet; fully remote voice dialing, video chat, and, of course, state-of-the-art Hollow detection, tracking, and analyzation software. The phones were supplied by none other than Urahara Kisuke himself, part of the provisions that the team received from Seireitei, and were nothing short of godsends. Virtually indestructible (they'd been tested by Kusajishi Yachiru and survived over a week in her possession, which meant that nothing short of an Adjuchas would likely be able to damage it), the phones were also completely innocuous - and wireless-compatible!

Reaching for the earpiece perpetually nestled in her left ear, Tatsuki snapped at the phone, "Dial Mizuiro!" as she hurtled out the doorway and into the street.

* * *

Mizuiro was reaching for his phone even before the first chords of the Bee Gee's 'Stayin' Alive' blared from his ringer. Bad disco or not, he thought the song was - however morbidly - appropriate as a 'Hollow Alert' tone. Certainly it was more interesting than Ichigo's, which was the same grating squall of 'Hollow! Hollow!' that his old Substitute badge had used. Tatsuki's phone was set to emit a dull buzz when a Hollow was sensed, Chad's used a low bass-guitar riff that he'd recorded himself, Kiego's played some painfully dated computer-game theme, and gods only knew what Uryuu used - if he used anything, that was. The Quincy still had the best reiatsu-sensing skills of all of them; he might not even need his phone to alert him.

'_Tatsuki calling,' _the smooth voice of his phone informed him, and Mizuiro sighed faintly, letting the low hum in his throat fade away as the first of his 'water balloons' coalesced in his palm.

"Answer," he replied automatically, picking up his pace to a trot. The Hollow was only a few blocks away, between him and the dojo.

"_Are you on target?"_

"Hello to you too, Tatsuki-san," he shot back, with only the most mild sarcasm. "I'm five blocks away. It doesn't look very powerful. Would you like to take high ground as backup, or did you want this one yourself?"

"_Take it," _Tatsuki answered immediately. _"I'm just leaving the dojo, but I'll be there in two minutes. High ground."_

"See you there," Mizuiro answered politely. "Phone, command: end call."

'_Call ended,' _the phone confirmed, and Mizuiro sped up until he was almost-but-not-quite running down the sidewalk, weaving in and out of the mass of fleeing, bewildered non-sensitives on his way to go fight a monster, humming the chorus of 'Stayin' Alive' as he did so.

* * *

"That was quick," Ichigo muttered a few minutes later, as the dull itch of the Hollow's reiatsu abruptly vanished.

"Mizuiro seems to be motivated today," Ishida answered dryly, his eyes half-focused behind his glasses as he tracked their friend. "Tatsuki didn't even get a hit in."

* * *

The dull itchy-burny sensation that had been crawling along the back of her neck stopped suddenly, and the surprise caused Karin to stumble a half-step, nearly missing her kick. The ball skittered off the toe of her cleated shoe, gave a few halfhearted bounces, and rolled off across the field, finally stopping a good ten feet from the goal.

Thankfully, she was alone on the field; it saved her the embarrassment of having her bungled kick seen, or the otherwise-inevitable scolding she would have received from either Isshin or Ichigo when she swore in frustration. Kurosaki Karin was not used to missing her shots.

Soccer still took up most of her weekends; fiercely competitive games in which she was usually the only female, playing with and against teams of older boys, all of whom treated her with slightly awed respect. The last time one of them had even contemplated the notion of getting fresh with her, he'd wound up on his back in the dirt with a broken nose, a dislocated shoulder, and a renewed respect for the name Kurosaki.

It was only Ichigo's furious insistence that had kept Karin off of the Karakura Team. Even though she was now older than Ichigo had been when he'd first gained the abilities of a Shinigami, he continued his stubborn belief that his little sister was too young to be allowed to fight Hollows.

However, Ichigo wasn't usually around on weekdays, so if a Hollow just happened to show up in an area that just happened to be near Karin... well, suffice it to say that she and the rest of the Team had a tacit agreement that her involvement in the fights would simply not be mentioned to her brother.

And if a few of her soccer games didn't run _quite_ as late as she said they did, well... Shinji and Tatsuki were more than happy to teach Karin a bit more about the Shinigami and martial arts without her overprotective nii-san or her overbearing father being any the wiser.

Truth be told, though, Ichigo would probably have objected a great deal less to the lessons that Shinji was teaching - reiatsu control, beginner's kendo, and the basics of Shinigami lore - if the lessons were not being held at the Shoten. Despite the fact that the old shop was precisely where Ichigo had begun his own learning, there was one addition to the shop in past years that he did not approve of.

Collecting her ball, Karin shaded her eyes with one hand and squinted towards the far side of the park. Speak of the devil...

* * *

A faint, frustrated sigh escaped thin lips.

Ice-pale blue eyes, narrowed against the painfully bright sun, remained steadily fixed on two figures across the expanse of grass.

One was a woman, young, with wavy, dark-brown hair and haunted, dark-circled brown eyes. A thin scar, still pink and slightly raw, ran from the corner of her right eye to just below the front of her right cheekbone, marring what had once been a pretty, if unremarkable, face.

Her attention was divided about equally between the book of traditional poetry that she held, and her toddler son playing quietly in the grass just beyond her arm's reach, murmuring happily to himself as he watched beetles moving through the grass.

"Gin?"

Jerking his gaze away from the mother and son, Ichimaru Gin turned, blinking in surprise as he found Kurosaki Karin stepping into the shadow of the tree he was sitting under. The oversized rock he was lounging on was more than large enough for two people, and he sat up without thinking, shifting over to allow her room to sit.

She did so, not batting an eye at sitting less than an arm's length from the man her brother had told her never to be near. It wasn't the first time she'd been around him; whenever he wasn't out stalking, he was holed up at the Shoten, and it wasn't unusual for her to run into him during her lessons there.

Perhaps unwisely, she had never been afraid of him.

Instead, she'd treated him with the same blunt casualness she did everyone else, and after a few bewildered days, Gin's response had been to shrug it off and begin treating her the same way.

The result, if it could not be called a friendship, was at the very least something like an exercise in mutual faith. Karin had faith that Gin had no desire to kill her or betray her secret lessons to her family, and Gin had faith that Karin bore him no ill will. It meant a quiet but surprisingly steady trust between the pair.

"So," she said after a long moment, "what's so special about him?"

"Eh?" Forcing his eyes wide despite the sharpness of the light outside the tree's protective shadow, Gin managed an approximation of bewildered innocence. "Wha'chya talkin' 'bout, Karin-chan?"

The look the girl leveled at him would have made Zaraki quail. Wisely, Gin wiped the false innocence from his face, narrowing his eyes again as he stared at her. "Wha' makes y' think he's special, Karin-chan?"

"Oh, please," she snorted, folding her arms across her chest. "You must think I'm as dense as Ichi-nii. You don't give off pedo vibes, Gin, and I can't imagine that the kid owes you money. So why the hell are you constantly stalking him? Is he... possessed or something?"

"Or somethin'," Gin agreed, shrugging, and Karin sighed, leaning backwards to thump the back of her head on the trunk of the tree.

"Why," she muttered between thumps, "do I bother?"

" 's in the blood," Gin informed her, ignoring the responding eyeroll, and stuck his hand between the tree and her head when she didn't stop thumping. Her last thump came down hard on his fingers, and he felt the brief flash of pain across his knuckles as they were scraped raw on the rough bark.

Looking contrite, Karin sat back up again, rubbing the back of her head and half-glancing at his hand, but Gin forestalled questions by letting the hem of his sleeve fall down over his abused hand.

"So, tell me. What is he?" she repeated finally, her own eyes narrowing as she turned her gaze to the brown-haired boy.

Gin's shrugged response was as terse as it was eloquent. "He's a storm."

A few long minutes of silence passed, the two of them watching the boy as he continued to fuss through the grass, until he gave a laugh of triumph and waved his hand, a grasshopper trapped in his clenching fingers.

"Why haven't you told anyone?" Karin asked softly. "There are ways to prepare for a storm, you know. It's easier to weather when you're ready for it."

A very faint, sad smile flickered over the edge of Gin's mouth. "Y' hones'ly think they'd b'lieve me?" he countered, shaking his head. "Got no proof. Jus' a feelin' I shouldn' have," he added, one thin finger unconsciously tracing the line of the neutralization scar across his chest.

"Gin, any kind of warning is better than none!" Karin snapped at him, but the slow shake of the man's head cut her off.

"Righ' now, ain' nothin' I c'n do," he said softly, pushing himself to his feet. "B'sides... dun' wanna get hit by lightnin', hm?"

And with that, he turned and walked away.

Karin stared after him for a long moment, until he rounded a corner of the path and vanished from her sight. Sighing, she dropped her chin onto her hands and turned her attention back to the brown-haired boy.

* * *

"There you are," Shinji sighed in exasperated relief the instant Gin slipped through the door of the Shoten. "You've got a visitor."

Eyes widening, Gin took a quick step backwards, turning back towards the door. "Think I jus' remembered somethin' I forgot -"

"Oh, no, you don't!" Snake-quick, Shinji's hand shot out and snagged the back of Gin's collar. Meekly, Gin allowed himself to be hauled backwards into the shop. "You've been avoiding her since you got here, and I'm sick of getting caught in the middle of your crap," the blond Visored growled, pointing straight-armed to one of the doors at the back of the room. "You're gonna go and talk to her, and I mean now!"

Sighing softly, Gin hunched his shoulders and obediently shuffled past the other man, clambering up the steps at the back of the room and slipping through the door without a word.

Matsumoto Rangiku sat against the back wall of the room, knees drawn up to her chest and arms hugging her legs, body curled in on itself as though she were attempting to shrink herself away. It was so strange seeing the usually outgoing, vibrant woman in such a position that Gin froze, bewildered and not a little concerned, barely a step within the doorway.

"Ran-chan?" he ventured, cautiously, and brilliant blue eyes immediately raised to meet his own.

"Gin," Rangiku said softly, uncurling herself and standing up so that she could look her one-time lover in the eye. "We need to talk."


	8. Tears and Truths

Extra-long to make up for being extra-late?

I do apologize - my Muses have not been as eager to cooperate for this story as they were for RDBH, and working two jobs leaves less time than I would like for writing. All I can say is, thank you for your continued patience and tolerance, and I hope I continue to be worth your time!

~ Jade

Warnings for this chapter: Written and edited at high speeds - please excuse the errors I have no doubt missed!

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 8: Tears and Truths

* * *

Hyorinmaru swung down.

The air hissed in protest as it parted before the infinitely sharp blade, the faintest edge of icy reiatsu trailing in the sword's wake as it struck, clashing against Haineko's upturned edge.

His opponent let out a faint, pained hiss as the sword dipped under the power of Hitsugaya's strike, letting Hyorinmaru's edge slip dangerously close to her pale neck. Thin hands spasmed on the hilt of the blade as the arms trembled, muscles driven beyond their capacity. Haineko was a heavy blade, far heavier than she looked, and the cat likely did not appreciate being called out for situations like this...

Kin, pale blue eyes wide as Hyorinmaru's deadly edge inched closer, drew in a ragged breath and mustered what little remained of her strength, slowing but not stopping the icy blade's decent. Less than a hand's width remained before her blood would mark the training field.

_His face impassive, Hitsugaya stared at the young girl standing before him. Her eyes -shaped like Rangiku's, but with an ice-blue color that must have come from Gin - were fixed on his, all of her attention focused on him as he spoke._

"_Your mother has been coddling you," he said softly, drawing Hyorinmaru with a hiss of frozen steel. "She gives you breaks when you're tired, allows you to catch your breath and tend to your wounds. That's not how things happen in the field. An enemy won't give you time to recover yourself, and neither will I. What you've had was kendo training. What I'm about to give you... is combat training."_

_She nodded, pale and silent, as he raised Hyorinmaru, feeling the crystalline dragon's anticipation and curiosity. He lunged at her without warning, and she barely brought up Haineko's blade in time to deflect the attack. _

_Rangiku's fighting style was much like the woman herself; deceptively strong, but laid-back and casual to the point it bordered on lazy. She was the only one whom Kin had ever fought against, and it showed. The girl was woefully unprepared for Hitsugaya's faster, fiercer attacks._

_

* * *

_

Ice-colored eyes flashed with desperation and just a hint of panic as Hitsugaya's strength won.

Twisting sideways, she used their still-locked blades to shove Hyorinmaru left as she twisted right, throwing herself to the ground as she did so. Her shoulder hit hard, but she turned the momentum into a roll, pulling her legs out of the path of Hitsugaya's falling blade.

There was a certain art to falling and rolling with a blade in your hand, one that Kin hadn't quite mastered yet - there was a line of blood showing through a slice in her sleeve when she scrambled to her feet, breath coming in unsteady gasps. Nonetheless, she raised Haineko again, although the sword wavered in her grasp.

"You look about ready to collapse," Hitsugaya commented dryly, straightening up and resting the back of Hyorinmaru's blade against his shoulder. Half-turning to glance over his shoulder, his eyes met those of his Lieutenant, watching them calmly from the porch of Hitsugaya's childhood home. "What kind of endurance training have you actually been doing with her?"

Rangiku shrugged in reply. "We never could spar for more than an hour at a time. You've been chasing her around for..." pausing, she squinted at the angle of the sunlight, shafting through the trees. "...about two, I think?"

Kin exhaled a snort, although whether that was aimed at the chasing part or the two hours part - he thought it was probably closer to three - it was impossible to tell.

"Call a break, you two," Rangiku advised, trying to hide her smile and doing a rather poor job of it. "Captain, your grandmother has watermelon!"

"Matsumoto, neither of us is young enough that we need to be called in for snack breaks," he snapped back at her, glancing past her at the steady form of his grandmother, standing just outside the door of the house with a platter in her hands. "Do not treat me like a child!"

It was, he reflected, purely bad luck that his voice cracked on the last word.

There was a moment of utter silence before Rangiku burst out laughing, letting herself fall sideways on the porch as she clutched her stomach, all but convulsing with the force of her giggles. Behind her, he could see his grandmother smiling, her amusement gentle at Toushirou's expense.

There was a slightly strangled sound from beside him, and he glanced over to see Kin, teeth sunk into her lower lip in a not-entirely successful attempt to muffle her own laughter.

"Oh, shut up," Hitsugaya growled, face flaming, before sheathing Hyorinmaru and stomping towards the porch.

"_You must admit,"_ the dragon commented, humor tickling the edges of the booming voice,_ "that the timing of that was quite perfect."_

"_You can shut up, too,"_ he grumbled back, but the anger in his voice was mostly feigned. Rangiku's laughter was highly contagious... a bit like the plague.

Kin followed him onto the porch, still laughing silently, one hand pressed tightly over her mouth, shoulders shaking and eyes bright with mirth.

Shaking his head and sighing, Toushirou plucked the largest slice of watermelon off the platter his grandmother held out. "Go ahead and laugh," he growled to Kin, taking a large bite and valiantly resisting the urge to spit the seeds at Rangiku. "And pretend you actually know how to make noise."

"Ah..." Lowering her hand from her mouth, Kin offered a tentative smile in his direction, the corners of her eyes still creased with amusement. "I apologize, Hitsugaya-taichou."

He tongued one of the watermelon seeds he'd tucked into his cheek, weighing the temptation of immaturity against the reservations of decades, then gave his head a miniscule shake and finally spit the seeds over the side of the porch, away from the three females. "Don't," he answered shortly, moving to sit on the edge of the porch and letting his feet hang. "There's nothing you need to apologize for. Eat your watermelon."

The smile lingering on Kin's mouth gentled slightly, the wary humor in her eyes deepening to gratitude, and she bowed her head to him in thanks, reaching for the smallest slice on the tray until Rangiku reached past her and shoved the largest remaining piece into her hand. Her eyes widening, Kin opened her mouth to object, but was instantly cut off by Hitsugaya and Matsumoto's dual chorus of "Just eat it!"

Looking quite sheepish, she sat down and complied.

* * *

"_Haineko is complaining quite bitterly about being dragged into the girl's training sessions,_" Hyorinmaru noted with some amusement, and Hitsugaya covered his faint smirk by wiping watermelon juice from his mouth.

"_I'm not surprised,"_ he answered silently, _"Typical lazy cat."_

A faint _wuff_ of amusement answered that. _ "Lazy but for the exercise of her lungs, sadly. I begin to worry for my hearing."_

"_Just point out to her how devastated Matsumoto would be if something were to happen to Kin that could have been prevented by this training," _Hitsugaya suggested, not remotely in jest.

"_A fair point,"_ Hyorinmaru answered, his own tone sobering, and the immediacy of the dragon's presence vanished; no doubt taking his master's advice and speaking to Haineko. The fact that his and his lieutenant's Zanpakutou were in near-constant communication had long ago ceased to worry the young Captain. It gave him at least some small insight into his second's state of mind, sake-drenched though it had often been.

With Kin's identity now an open secret between them, though, he found that Rangiku's mind was much less obscure than it had once been. He would never understand the woman fully, nor did he want to, but at least he had some slight idea of what to expect when his Lieutenant suffered an emotional blow.

The last one she'd been dealt, three days ago, had come from a not-precisely-scheduled visit to the Living World and her former lover to reveal the secret she'd kept from him for over a century.

* * *

Taking another careful bite of her watermelon, Rangiku felt a smile cross her face as she glanced to her side, taking in the peculiar sight of both her daughter and her Captain, sitting on the edge of the porch with their feet dangling, watermelon slices in hand. Kin's quiet calm and the low, cool tingle of Hitsugaya's reiatsu pressed soothingly on the edges of her own awareness, helping to untangle the still-festering mess of emotions that was left from her visit with Gin three days before.

* * *

"_We need to talk," she said simply, hoping the sharp determination in her tone would hide the quaver in her voice. _

"_Maa... talk 'bout what, Ran-chan?" he countered, eyes narrowed once again to mere slits, rubbing at the back of his neck with a nervous half-smile. _

_Turning her head away, Matsumoto let a faint, uneasy frown trace her mouth. "I think this might go better if you were sitting down, Gin."_

_The half-smile vanished from his face in an instant, his eyes opening again to fix on her, wide and serious. "Jus' what're you gonna tell me, Ran?"_

_She turned back to him, the frown sharpening, and Gin sat down on the floor with a grimace, not wanting to argue with the expression in her eyes. Silently, Matsumoto folded her legs beneath her and sat facing him, her seiza perfect, twisting her hands together in her lap while she gathered her words._

"_Do you remember the night before you left Rukongai, for the Academy?" the quiet question came after a long moment, and he blinked, confused, and nodded._

"_Did you ever wonder why it took me so long to join you in the Seireitei after you'd left?"_

"_I..." frowning, Gin shook his head slightly. "I jus' figured you weren' ready yet."_

"_In a manner of speaking," Rangiku answered dryly. "The truth is, Gin, that one time together..." Even though her words failed her, the hand she settled over her stomach did not; Gin's eyes widened sharply, an expression of gaping disbelief crossing his face for the barest of moments._

"_We... got a kid?" he managed, half-stammering, when the first wave of shock had finally passed. "But - you never -"_

"_I didn't think you would care," Rangiku answered softly, her voice sad. "When I finally came to Seireitei, you were already a seated officer, already at Aizen's side... I thought I was behind you. And when you came back to me... you never showed any interest in taking things beyond quick fucks, Gin, what was I supposed to think?"_

"_I..." stunned, Gin shook his head. " 'm sorry, Ran, I shoulda -"_

"_No," she interrupted softly, holding up one hand to silence him. "It's not your fault, Gin. And truth be told, I wouldn't trade what happened. Kin has been the greatest blessing I've ever received."_

"_Kin?" he echoed, the faintest traces of a smile pulling up the corners of his mouth, and Rangiku shot him a warning glare._

"_Yes, Gin, named for you," she sighed, rolling herself a little bit sideways so that she could sit on the floor rather than her heels. "Her hair is the most beautiful shade of white-gold..."_

" '_s a girl?" Gin smiled softly, his voice amazed, and Rangiku nodded slightly, her own eyes misty._

"_I... could I... meet her?" _

_The moment the tentative whisper escaped him, the smile fell from Rangiku's face, a flash of pain crossing behind her eyes. _

"_Ran?"_

"_Gin, I..." Twisting her hands together, Matsumoto averted her eyes again. "I raised Kin... trying to instill the will of a Shinigami in her - the loyalty, the honor, the sense of duty to Seireitei. She was sill so young when you betrayed us..."_

_The smile slid away from Gin's face as well, his eyes sliding half-shut as his expression went guarded and his body language blank. "I guess... she hates me, then?"_

_The pain and resignation in his voice stabbed deep. Feeling the tears well in her eyes, Rangiku reached out her hands to him, wishing she could still feel the dark, sharp curl of his reiatsu around her own. "Oh, gods, Gin, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry -"_

_She shouldn't have come. Should never have left him with the news of a daughter he would never see, a child who would never willingly look him in the eye. He would have been happier in ignorance, ever unknowing of the miracle he had given her. _

"_I'm sorry, I'm shouldn't have -"_

"_Shh, Ran. S'alright," he whispered, low voice suddenly closer to her ear than it should have been, and then his arms slid around her shoulders again, thin and strong and painfully familiar, and Rangiku lost herself in the simple, agonizing bliss of memory and cried her eyes dry against his chest._

_

* * *

_

"_S' tell me more," came the smiling request, almost an hour later. Matsumoto, once recovered from her tears, had given Gin the next-best thing to meeting his daughter; the knowledge of who she was. How her skills with kidou were bidding fair to pass Rangiku's one day, the slow but steady improvement to her kendo, and how much she enjoyed reading, particularly about Seireitei's history._

"_...and we moved her out of Rei-baa-san's house in the twenty-third and put her with Hitsugaya's grandmother in Junrinan until the new term at the Academy starts -"_

_She'd broken off as Gin sat up sharply, his eyes wide. "Academy?"_

"_Of course the Academy," Matsumoto replied, nonplussed. "Why did you think I'd been putting so much time into training her if not to go to the Academy?"_

"_Jus' t' defend herself," Gin answered, his voice too sharp and too fast. "Th' 'cademy's too dangerous for her!"_

"_Too dangerous?" Rangiku repeated incredulously, her eyebrows nearly raising off her head. "Gin, she's been living in Rukongai! The Academy will be a haven compared to that." _

" '_s not... don' mean the livin' conditions," Gin grumbled, his eyes falling shut again as he slumped down, knees to his chest. " 's just... 'f they know she's your kid, ain't gonna take much thinkin' to fig're out who her daddy is, hm? An' I don' want her gettin' hurt 'cause a' wha' I did."_

"_Is that all?" Rather to his frustration, she laughed softly, reaching out a gentle hand to squeeze his shoulder. "Gin, relax. Hitsugaya-taichou is the one who sponsored her for the Academy, and he'll make no secret of it. Shuuhei and Kira will stand up for her, too, once I tell them she's mine. People won't dare lay a hand on her, Gin. I promise."_

"_Don' promise, Ran," he whispered back, shaking his head at her. "Don' promise."_

_Matsumoto left him a few minutes later. As he felt the energy of the Senkaimon fade, he curled himself into the corner of the room, eyes closed tight, trying not to remember..._

...hard stone against his knees, a long-fingered hand stroking his hair as he knelt. The touch was gentle, but there was always an undertone of threat to it - that hand could, and often had, so easily fist into his hair, move and strike his face, tighten around his throat...

"Just remember, Gin," the voice, soft and cultured, so easily hiding the hiss of the serpent's tongue, "my eyes are everywhere. My blades are everywhere. You have no sanctuary, no secrecy. You have nothing that cannot be taken from you."

_And Gin could only curl himself tighter, trying desperately to fight the memories that threatened to overwhelm him, and wish that Matsumoto had never told him the truth._

_

* * *

_

As always, the food had been bundled neatly into cloth-wrapped packages, compact and tightly tied, and tucked into a heavy cloth bag. It was more than enough to sustain two children for a week's time - it could easily have sustained Renji and Rukia's old group of five with little effort - but Byakuya, like Renji, was fully aware that their two 'informants' were not feeding only themselves.

"Is everything satisfactory?" The question was asked softly, barely loud enough to carry across the austerely elegant kitchen to where Renji knelt.

"You gonna ask that every week, Byakuya?" Renji snorted, tying down the top of the bag and swinging it carefully over his shoulder. The noble himself was carrying a cloth-wrapped package the length of his arm, which Renji glanced at curiously but did not question. "The answer's always the same, ya know."

"I do know," Byakuya replied, amusement coloring the edges of his tone as he stopped beside his partner, adjusting the hood of the lightweight cloak over his head to hide the kenseikan he wore. Both men were taking an hour from their mornings to take the weekly delivery to Inuzuri, and neither wished to waste time changing from and to their shihakusho when a tattered cloak served the purpose of disguise well enough. "However, I prefer to be assured."

"Try bein' assured that your kitchen staff know what they're doin'," Renji chided teasingly, dropping a fast kiss on the corner of Byakuya's mouth and grinning at the mock-glare his action received. At a discreet distance, the kitchen staff exchanged smiles as they very dutifully continued their work, all of them keeping a not-so-dutiful half an eye on their Master and his Consort.

"I have every faith in my staff," Byakuya answered, flicking playfully at the hood of Renji's own cloak so that it fell forward, over the redhead's eyes. "However, it would be remiss of us if we did not ensure the contents of the package ourselves."

Grinning broadly, Renji shoved his hood back again, looped the strap of the bag over his shoulder and his free arm into Byakuya's, and dragged the unprotesting noble out the door in a flicker of Shunpo.

Their entertainment departed, the kitchen staff exchanged broad grins of mingled affection and amusement and quickly resumed their duties.

* * *

The trip to Inuzuri didn't take long, at Flashstep speeds, and the two children were waiting for them, only half-hidden by the scrubby brush ringing the hillside where the three graves lay. Both of the children looked far better than they had at their first encounter with the Shinigami - they were now clean and clearly healthy, their clothes, while far from new, were clean and well-mended, and while neither wore shoes, it was entirely a matter of choice.

"Mornin', you two," Renji grunted, swinging the bag off his shoulder. As usual, Haru - growing into a rough set of lean muscles, now that he was being properly fed - wasted no time in digging into the pack, not even bothering to greet the two Shinigami. Ko, as ever, bowed politely to them, her dark eyes cautious and assessing as they ran over the two Shinigami, lingering briefly on the package Byakuya still carried.

"Good morning, Abarai-taichou, Shinigami-san," she answered finally, not even blinking as she caught the wrapped riceball Haru pitched at her head. "Thank you for the food."

"You are welcome," Byakuya answered levelly, and Renji shook his head slightly in amusement. Byakuya had remained adamant in his refusal to give the two children his name - partly because he did not want it bruited about that he was personally investigating the source of the rumors in Rukongai, and, he had half-joked to Renji a few weeks earlier, partly because he thought Haru would attempt to extort him should the boy realize Byakuya's wealth.

He probably had a point on the second part, Renji thought with a snicker, tapping Haru lightly on the head and interrupting the boy's dig through the bag.

"Fishcakes are in the blue box, kid. You got anythin' for us this week?"

"Hmph," was Haru's only reply as the blue box was dragged into view and eagerly raided for its contents. "Been watchin' Michi like you want. Man came two days ago, brought bottles 'long with 'im. He dropped 'em off, they argued a sec, an' then he left again."

"Michi's contact argued with him?" Byakuya repeated, eyebrows flickering upward, but Haru had his mouth too full to answer.

Licking daintily at the tips of her fingers to remove the last few grains of rice, Ko nodded faintly. "In a sense. The man brought ten bottles, brown ones with gold writing, and he only stayed for a few minutes. Michi asked him a question and the man shook his head and was angry when he answered. He shoved the bottles at Michi and left."

Byakuya frowned faintly, his expression thoughtful. "I see. And have you observed anything else that might be of use in identifying Michi's contact?"

Two headshakes answered him. Their previous descriptions of the man - brown haired, average height and build, with no particular defining features other than being, presumably, a Shinigami, had not helped narrow the field of suspects greatly. The image they had painted of him was that of an utterly average man - and therefore, for all intents and purposes, utterly invisible.

Haru, already well into his third fishcake, finally glanced up at the two men and blinked when he caught sight of the package still under Byakuya's arm. While he wasn't quite bold enough to grab it from the Shinigami's grasp, he did narrow his eyes towards it and carefully close the box he'd been eating from, standing up with it held carefully in his hand. "What's that?" he demanded sharply, jabbing a finger towards Byakuya's cargo.

"Nothing edible," the noble answered dryly, and Haru's face flushed a dull red.

"Screw you," the boy snapped back, ignoring both his sister's chiding glare and Byakuya's raised eyebrow. "As if you've ever had t' go hungry a day in your life!"

Renji found his own eyebrows raising as well, a little surprised by the astuteness of the comment. Granted, Byakuya missed a good number of meals - he, like Renji, had the unfortunate habit of becoming so involved with his work that he often forgot to eat.

However, being hungry with food readily available a few steps down the hall was very different than being hungry with no food in sight, a difference Renji could well appreciate. He'd experienced both.

"You are... quite correct," Byakuya answered, after a moment of silence. "I was privileged enough in my childhood that I was never starved, and my comment was thoughtless. However, I believe that what is contained here is something you may well appreciate."

Ko, a second riceball half-forgotten in her hand, turned curious eyes to Renji, who could only shrug in response. "I dunno what it is either," he informed her, and she wordlessly swung her gaze back to Byakuya, who quietly set about unwrapping the package.

When the cloth parted to reveal a wooden box the length of his arm, Renji felt a gape of incredulity cross his face before he schooled his expression again. Had Byakuya really -

Yes, he had. Lying nestled in the dark cloth lining the box were two swords of faultless craftsmanship. Both were katana length, although one was slightly shorter than the other, the blade lighter.

"You're... givin' us... swords?" Haru, his own expression as stunned as Renji's had been, reached almost hesitantly towards the contents of the box before jerking his hand away again, fixing a glare on Byakuya. "What's the price?"

"They have no price for you," Byakuya answered levelly. "I do not consider them a bribe or a trade, but an investment. Both of you have proven yourselves of strong will and sound judgement over the past months, and I believe that, should you desire it, there will be a place in the Shinigami Academy for you both."

"Sh - Shinigami?" Haru echoed, his voice nearly failing him. "Us?"

"Hey." Catching the boy's attention, Renji jerked a thumb at his own chest. "Inuzuri here, remember?"

"Yeah, but yer a freak," came the bewildered response, and Renji, rather than be insulted, burst out laughing.

Byakuya merely shook his head. "Renji is not the only citizen of high-district Rukongai to attain a notable position within the Gotei forces," he reminded the two, his voice patient. "At the current rate, in fact, Rukon citizens and the unblooded will soon outnumber the nobility within the ranks."

"An' you wan' us t' join 'em? Are you nuts?"

Raising his eyebrow again, Byakuya glanced over the boy's head to meet Renji's eyes. "I think he would do well in the Eleventh, don't you?"

The kid who'd told Kuchiki Byakuya 'screw you' to his face? Hells, Zaraki would fall over himself to get him into the squad. "S'long as Yachiru doesn't decide she wants t' date him, he'd do fine," Renji grinned, earning himself a twitch of the lips from his partner.

"But we ain't... we never... how are we...?"

A faint huff and a flash of movement cut off Haru's incoherent babble, as Ko stepped easily around her brother and reached into the box, delicately grasping the hilt of the smaller blade and withdrawing it. The soft green of the hilt wrapping, matching the leather of the sheath, caught the sunlight as she lifted it, testing the weight of the slim blade.

When she lowered her hand again, she was blinking a bit too rapidly, her eyes just a little too bright. "Do you truly believe we could become Shinigami?" she asked simply, her eyes fixing on Byakuya's, even though her fingers began gently caressing the flat of the blade.

"Yes," Byakuya answered steadily. "Both of you have the reiatsu potential to become, not merely Shinigami, but powerful Shinigami. It would be a tremendous waste to allow your power to remain untapped."

There was another moment of silence between them, Haru in bewildered shock, Byakuya and Renji waiting with various degrees of patience, before Ko quietly wiped the finger-marks from the blade on her yukata and quietly sheathed the blade before tying it to her sash.

"Very well," she said simply, and Haru shook his head at her in disbelief.

"Jus' like that, you're gonna go? Take their word an' just walk off to Seireitei like ya don't care anymore? How do you know they ain't lyin'?"

"They're not lying," she answered levelly. "They haven't lied to us from the start, Haru, you know that. And yes, I am going to take their word and try to become a Shinigami, and so are you! Don't try to deny that it's exactly what you've been hoping for, ever since they told you that Michi's words were lies!"

"You ain't -"

"I'm not blind and I'm not stupid! Unlike you, who make a point of being both!"

Haru stared at her for another furious moment before giving a snarled sigh of wordless exasperation, storming forward and seizing the blue-hilted katana from the box.

* * *

An hour and a half later, after Renji and Byakuya had returned to Seireitei - Byakuya immediately heading for the Academy to organize sponsorship papers, then back to the Sixth to find a willing kendo teacher for the pair - Renji settled himself in a handsomely wrought-iron chair on a stone terrace, outside a popular restaraunt near the Thirteenth Division's headquarters. He had a lunch date to meet, who was due... ah, now!

His eyes steady on the entrance to the pavilion, Renji grinned as he spotted Rukia padding her way through the open archway, Kotetsu Kiyone trotting along in her wake. The little third seat had attached herself to Rukia as soon as Rukia's news was announced, turning the once-constant contest between herself and Kotsubaki Sentarou of 'who can serve Ukitake-taichou better?' into 'who can serve their officer better?' Neither Rukia nor Sentarou had been particularly overjoyed with the change, despite the fact that Ukitake seemed to be enjoying the newfound peace of having only one of his thirds dancing constant attendance on him.

Although, Renji thought, biting back his grin as he waved briefly to the two women, it was probably for the best all around that Rukia had someone to attend her needs, something that was getting harder and harder for her to do. _And with good reason_, Renji added mentally, watching the once-tiny Lieutenant waddle her way between the tables.

Following the one-upmanship tradition of the Karakura Team, Rukia had waited until Chad and Tatsuki's wedding - a quiet affair, attended by no more people than had been at Uryuu and Orihime's - to announce to everyone, Ichigo included, that she was two months pregnant.

The only thing that had saved Ichigo from passing out had been Isshin stuffing a handful of ice cubes down the back of his son's shirt. Unfortunately for Ichigo, not even ice could help him a month later, when Unohana announced after her initial scans that Rukia was in fact bearing twins.

Renji had thought it was hilarious that the savior of the Soul Society fainted dead away upon learning he would soon have two children. Byakuya, equally amused but unwilling to show it, had made a few cutting remarks about Ichigo's strength of will once the young man woke up, and had promptly been invited to the sparring grounds in response. The invitation had been calmly rejected with the suggestion that Ichigo begin saving his strength now, for he would doubtlessly need it when his children arrived.

Which had, of course, prompted Ichigo to pass out a second time, and Byakuya to be summarily ejected from the room by a distinctly unamused Unohana.

Although Rukia wasn't quite six months pregnant now, she already looked about ready to pop - due, probably in equal parts, to the fact that stuffing two children into her tiny body was bound to cause a few changes, and the fact that Kiyone was stuffing food into her to at every given opportunity, apparently terrified of either the unborn children or their mother being undernourished. Which was not particularly likely, given that the Kuchiki manor's entire staff was at her beck and call and Unohana herself was overseeing the pregnancy...

Rukia dropped into the seat across from him with a grunt, and Renji had to fight down the urge to snicker. After checking - twice - to make sure Rukia was comfortable, Kiyone whisked herself off to the counter to give her Lieutenant's order, then waited impatiently, toe tapping, as the cooks set to work.

Rukia waited until Kiyone's eyes were diverted, then dropped her head against the table with a resounding thud.

"Uugh."

"Oh, come on," Renji snickered, pouring her a cup of tea from the pot already steaming on the table. "It can't be that bad."

"You," Rukia gritted, still nose-down on the table, "are not attempting to manage a Division while dragging around an extra half your body weight."

"Only an extra half?" he teased, and easily ducked the fist that swiped at his head. Truth be told, Rukia probably had gained more than half her previous body weight, but then again, she'd always been friggin' tiny, and Ichigo was... well, not. Not anymore, anyway. By the time he'd been seventeen he'd been taller than Byakuya, and he hadn't _stopped_ growing until he was an inch shy of Renji's height.

It made Renji wonder, a bit, how the kids were going to turn out. Both Isshin and Kaien had been tall and solidly-built, and Ichigo wasn't exactly a stick figure himself, but both Karin and Yuzu had stayed reasonably small. That was probably their mother's influence, although Renji had never dared bring up the subject with either of the Kurosaki men. Both Hisana and Rukia, though,

One thing was for sure, though - the kids were going to be scary powerful. Rukia wasn't exactly a slouch - Senbonzakura had been mumbling something about Sode no Shirayuki preparing to urge Rukia into Bankai training after the children were born - and Ichigo...

The last time Renji had tasted the young Visored's power, he'd realized with a jolt of disbelief that Ichigo's strength easily eclipsed that of Yamamoto himself. The blood of the Spirit King was telling itself.

"Here you go, Rukia-fukutaichou!" sang out Kiyone, disrupting Renji's increasingly humming thoughts. The tray of food - a bowl of noodles, another of teriyaki chicken, two skewers of grilled vegetables, and a plate heaping with dango dumplings for dessert - was deposited in front of the Lieutenant, and Kiyone managed to disappear before Rukia could object to the volume of food.

Wordlessly, Renji pulled over the stack of clean, empty bowls he had brought to the table before Rukia's arrival, and began dividing the bounty in half.

"She means well, you know," he remarked after a minute, sliding the much-reduced bowls back to Rukia's side of the table.

"I know she does," came the answering sigh. "It's just... aggravating. Nobility or not, I'm not used to being treated like something... something _fragile_!"

"Seireitei doesn't see a whole lotta births," Renji reminded her, not that he really needed to. "You're gonna have to put up with a bit of... what's the word? Cosseting?"

"Nii-sama working on your vocabulary again?" she asked dryly, and Renji mock-scowled at her in response.

"Ah, shaddup. How're your duties gettin' along lately?"

A snort. "Fortunately, Kiyone trains well, too. I can still give orders at drill and do most of the desk-work, although I think Ukitake finds himself at a bit of a loss without all the paperwork dumped on him."

"Ah, I'm sure Kyouraku would be happy to find a way to take up his time," Renji snickered, earning himself a swat on the arm and a half-stifled grin.

Lunch concluded in due course, and Renji collected their bowls and sat back as he watched the very pregnant Lieutenant of the Thirteenth toddle her way back to work.

If nothing else, the next few decades at the Academy were going to be very, very interesting.

* * *

With one of the green packs of the Fourth Division over his shoulder, nobody thought to question Tsutomu's presence outside the Twelfth, as long as the broom in his hands kept up a steady motion.

He did not have very long to wait; the indecent creature so foolishly given rank of Lieutenant of the Tenth was gone for less than an hour, no doubt to an assignation with that treasonous snake, Ichimaru. It was certainly enough time for him to clear the dust from the stones surrounding the building, though not so long that the guards standing outside the doors thought to question him.

When the woman reemerged, breasts exposed like the indecent whore she was, it didn't rouse suspicion when he quietly finished his sweeping and drifted off. As ever, nobody took particular note of him as he slid away from the Twelfth, ducking through alleyways and dark corners, discarding the broom and the supply pack along the way.

Eventually, he slipped from the walls of Seireitei and leapt to Shunpo, crossing through the districts of Rukongai with no thought but a brief wave of disgust, and continuing on until he reached the small building where his Master was forced to make his home, after having been ejected from the noble manor where he had once resided.

The servant let him in, as ever, and Tsutomu dropped to his hands and knees, crawling forward until he felt himself within his Master's gaze.

"Report," ordered the voice, dark and velvet-smooth, and Tsutomu nodded, bowing until his forehead brushed the floor.

"Yes, Masa-sama. The woman who holds the rank of Lieutenant in the Tenth Division, Matsumoto Rangiku, entered the Twelfth Division, which is known to have a Senkaimon leading directly to Ichimaru's residence in the Living Realm, two hours ago. She returned after an hour and left in the direction of her assigned Division."

"So then," his Master purred, sounding almost... amused? "Ichimaru know nows of his daughter... I believe it is time to proceed, Tsutomu."

"Sir?"

"A message to the one who betrayed the cause, I think. The girl is no longer at the ward-house, but a message may still be sent. Act tonight."

"Yes, sir," Tsutomu answered quickly, and bowed again, the wooden floor rough against the skin of his brow, before backing away on his hands and knees, carefully inching his way out the door.

Watching his agent leave, Kuchiki Masa smiled.


	9. Promises and Pain

Hey, everybody! Just a couple of quick notes; we're finally done with the massive amounts of setup, and can finally start getting into the real meat of the story here. As such, I must advise that things will be taking a turn for the darker over the next few chapters. The humor will remain, of course, but there will be angst, blood, and death to come.

Also, just a heads-up, **I will not be posting next week**, as I will be out of town. Posts will resume as usual on 9/29 or 9/30.

Last off, my birthday is Friday, and I would love to find lots of reviews in my inbox! Your words are always gifts to me~.

WARNINGS for this chapter; some gore and potentially disturbing imagery, angst.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 9: Pain and Promises

* * *

The door rolled open quietly, the sound of it only just enough to pull Shinji from his half-dozing meditations. Soft footsteps, muffled to near-silence on the worn tatami, crossed the room and slowly moved around him, until the soft rustle of cloth told Shinji his visitor was sitting down before him.

He waited, eyes closed, his breathing and reiatsu steady, as the silence in the room seemed to pulse between them.

When the other's voice came, it was soft, controlled. "Tell me about Aizen."

Sighing faintly, Shinji opened his eyes to meet the intense gaze. "I wish I could," he answered, the words bitter on his tongue. "But the truth is, I was blind. The first time I saw Aizen was the night he killed me."

"It's still a century sooner than we saw him," Hitsugaya reminded him, voice weary. "But it still wasn't enough. I thought his death and the end of the War meant our troubles would be done - I never dreamed everything would be starting over."

* * *

THE NIGHT BEFORE -

* * *

Hitsugaya awoke to the sound of screaming.

It was not an attack - the screams were not the pain-and-panic sounds of adult soldiers, but the cries of a very young child. That bewildering revelation was enough to draw him out of his bed, scrambling for a yukata to throw on, even as he felt the unmistakable ozone scent of Hisagi's reiatsu touch down outside.

"Matsumoto-fukutaichou! Rangiku!" The Captain's call was sharp, not frantic, but certainly concerned, and punctuated by another shrill cry.

His irritation at being so abruptly awakened rapidly cooling into concern, Hitsugaya shoved his way out the door of his quarters, pushing his hair out of his eyes as he glared at the other Captain.

"Hisagi, what is the meaning -"

Another wail cut him off, and Hitsugaya realized with some shock that the bundle of ash-and-blood-streaked cloth in the man's arms was the child responsible for his wakeup call.

Moreover, he knew the child.

His suspicions were confirmed when the child screamed again, not a wordless cry but a plaintive plea - "_Rangiku-san_!"

"Ninth was patrolling Rukon tonight," Shuuhei explained, his tone caught somewhere between worried and apologetic. "Found this one running through the woods near the boarder of the twenty-third, wounded and screaming for Rangiku. Wasn't sure what else to do -"

"Kyo-chan!"

Both Hisagi and Hitsugaya automatically turned to face the source of the new cry - Matsumoto, barefoot and struggling to pull a light yukata on over the scandalously short, lacy nightgown she'd brought back from the Living World, ran down the steps of the barracks and had gathered the sobbing child into her arms before either Captain could so much as blink.

Kyo, still sobbing, buried her face in Matsumoto's shoulder, disjointed words tumbling out and into the Lieutenant's sleep-mussed braid.

"Bad men - baa-san - hurt, hurt!"

Looking at his Lieutenant, Hitsugaya saw the fear beginning to dawn on the woman's face.

"Ari!" he barked, and the young medic officer who had been hovering anxiously nearby stepped forward, laying gentle hands over Kyo's matted hair before murmuring the words to a kidou spell that would bring a dreamless sleep. The child immediately fell silent, and a trembling Matsumoto carefully handed her over to the medic before taking a determined step towards the gate.

"Matsumoto! Get dressed and retrieve your Zanpakutou!" Hitsugaya barked at her, already turning to follow his own advice. She threw him a half-frantic, split-second glance before spinning and racing back to her own quarters, and he only took a split second to snap "Briefing!" at Hisagi before hurtling back to his own.

Concern growing by the minute, Hisagi raced after him.

As Shuuhei rolled the door shut behind them, Hitsugaya looked up from his clothes-chest, a clean uniform in his hands, and motioned for Hisagi to wait as he ducked behind the standing screen in the corner of the room.

"The situation is this," Hitsugaya began, rapidly shedding his sleeping yukata and slinging it over the top of the wooden panels. A very, very faint blue-white glow reflected off the back of the lacquered wood, and he grimaced slightly, bringing one hand up to brush the silver-blue snowflake mark beneath his collarbone. His marks were glowing, however faintly, an indisputable sign of Hyorinmaru's agitation. Wordlessly, he tried to sooth the restless dragon, but the spirit would not be calmed.

"There is a ward-house in Rukongai twenty-three," Hitsugaya continued with a faint sigh, turning his attention away from Hyorinmaru and beginning to yank his clothes on. "The child that you brought back was the youngest resident of that house. For her own reasons, Matsumoto has been attending the children there, and she is known and trusted by them."

There was a significant pause, one that lasted long enough for Hitsugaya to wrap and tie the belt of his hakama before it was broken by Hisagi's simple "I see."

"Kyo is one of nearly a dozen children in that ward-house, and I know they are well, if harshly, looked after." Stepping out from behind the screen, Hitsugaya swept his Captain's haori from its hanger and over his shoulders before seizing Hyorinmaru. "If the youngest of the wards was found running in terror, I worry for the safety of the other children."

"Two of the Ninth's in-Squad medics were with the patrol detachment," Hisagi offered, as the pair of them left Hitsugaya's quarters. Matsumoto was already in the courtyard, fully if not tidily dressed, her hair still in a sleeping-braid and her eyes fierce.

"We'll take two of ours as well," Hitsugaya replied, and began snapping orders to the clustered curious around them; reinforcements and a medical team to follow them, a messenger to the Fourth telling them to prepare for possible injuries -

For a brief second, he wondered if he should go directly to Junrinan to check on Kin, but decided against it. Kin was well-enough armed with a light katana and an ever-increasing skill with kidou, and would be able to fire off enough energy to get the attention of whomever had wall-patrol that night if she needed backup...

"_Haineko says that Kin is safe, for the moment,_" Hyorinmaru told him, still twining restlessly within his Master's soul. It was a sensation that felt as though it should have been mildly nauseating, but somehow wasn't. Wordlessly, Hitsugaya sent his thanks to the dragon, but received only another uncomfortable shift in reply.

Behind the three of them, a security detachment and a pair of Squad Ten's healers had formed up, any consideration of a quiet shift left behind them.

Nodding slightly, Hitsugaya touched his hand lightly to Hyorinmaru's hilt, the silent attempt at reassurance all he could offer. "Let's go."

* * *

The trip to Rukongai's twenty-third district seemed to be measured in seconds, all three officers pushing their considerable strength into their Flashstep. The detachment that was following them fell behind within the first steps, and Hitsugaya had to temper his own speed so as not to leave his two companions behind. The six officers following them would be able to track their reiatsu signatures with little difficulty; he put them out of his mind and focused on running.

* * *

A strangled hiss of Mandarin escaped Shuuhei as the three of them burst through the shattered door of Rei's home, punctuated by Hitsugaya's indrawn breath and Rangiku's muffled almost-scream.

Aside from the door being broken in two and knocked cleanly from its track, the damage to the house itself was minimal. From the outside, there was no way to tell the horrors that had been inflicted within.

None of the three of them was a stranger to battle, or the injuries that could be sustained by the warriors.

Even so, it took Hitsugaya's mind a long moment to process that the ruined mass of red pinned to the far wall with a katana had once been a living body.

It was only the tattered remains of the glaringly pink-flowered yukata that told him the body was Rei's.

Scattered around her like so many broken dolls were the motionless, blood-streaked forms of the children.

"Oh, blessed gods, no!"

Matsumoto shoved her way past him, forcefully enough to send him staggering, and was at the other end of the room before he could blink, falling on her knees beside the closest of the children - Hiro, the oldest boy - her hands desperately seeking a pulse, a breath, anything -

"He's alive!" she blurted, tears of mingled horror and relief already bright in her eyes, even as she spun to the next child. "Captain, Shuuhei, they're alive!"

But not for long, Hitsugaya realized grimly. Even from across the room, he could see that the injuries the ten children faced were critical. Shaking off the sudden echoes of nightmares - one of the wards was a little brown-haired girl who looked entirely too much like a younger Hinamori, and the sight of her broken and bleeding on the floor had left his heart numb for a moment - Hitsugaya collected himself and moved quickly across the floor to join his Lieutenant, Hisagi moving right by his side.

Out of the three of them, Hisagi was the only one with any skill at healing kidou, and even that was rudimentary, but Matsumoto was a steady hand with pressure bandages and Hitsugaya could use thin layers of ice to flawlessly seal bleeding wounds. By the time the medical teams - both his and Hisagi's - burst through the door three minutes behind their Captains, the worst of the children's wounds had been, however temporarily, addressed.

Catching Matsumoto's eye as the four medics swarmed over the injured children like so many ants on drops of honey, Hitsugaya mouthed a fierce _'stay here!'_ in her direction. On the off chance that one of the children should awaken, they would need a familiar face and voice there to sooth them.

He, meanwhile, needed to go to Junrinan and check up on Kin.

* * *

"All of them are to be readied for transport."

The statement, soft and calm as it was, had the general effect of a firecracker going off in the midst of a crowded dining room - some consternation, a bit of shocked disbelief, and a great deal of alarm.

"Transport... to _where_, Unohana-taichou?" That was one of the officers from the Ninth, who promptly earned himself a dark glare from Shuuhei and a benign smile from Unohana.

"Transport to the Fourth Division, of course," the woman answered placidly, rising back to her feet and disguising a wince at the ache in her knees. Kneeling too long on a hard surface had never been comfortable, and it was not becoming more so as time went on.

Perhaps the last thing Unohana Retsu had been expecting when she had turned in a mere two hours ago was for Hitsugaya-taichou to arrive at the Fourth before she had properly fallen asleep, his reiatsu sharp enough to drop the temperatures of the Fourth's barracks several degrees, with a very pale, very young female hurrying silently in his wake.

"Take care of her," he'd demanded simply, before informing a sleep-muddled Unohana that her help was needed in the twenty-third district of Rukongai.

The hour of the day or night was never of import to a medic; despite having spent over twenty hours on her feet before retiring, Unohana politely agreed and excused herself to change into more appropriate attire. She had requested accompaniment from her ever-faithful Lieutenant and her third seat, Iemura. Although she would have preferred Yamada Hanatarou to Iemura, the young seventh-seat was not spending his nights at the barracks of late, and she was loathe to disturb him from his privacy.

Precisely why she would have preferred Hanatarou was becoming increasingly well-displayed, as Iemura continued to stare at her, eve more astounded than the officers guarding the room.

"Bu-but, Captain!" Iemura protested, sounding horrified. "Surely you can't mean to bring these... these... _Rukon _into the walls of Seireitei!"

"And where do you propose they be treated, Iemura-san?" Unohana countered, softening her voice even more than usual, her eyes almost entirely hidden as she offered him a docile smile.

Hisagi, along with several of his men, backed up a few steps at the sight of Unohana smiling. Anyone with half a grain of sense - and most of the Eleventh Division, which had never boasted such a thing - knew to be rightly afraid of Unohana's smile.

Except, apparently, for Iemura.

"T-Taichou! These... children are not members of Seireitei! How can you even consider bringing them into the city - into our own barracks?"

Unohana hadn't even begun to formulate her reply when a dull crackle of reiatsu twisted through the blood-spattered room, the biting ozone-scent of Hisagi's anger sharpening the air.

"Iemura," Hisagi began, his voice so perfectly, expressionlessly calm that for a moment, it resembled that of Kuchiki Byakuya's, "are you suggesting that those of us born and bred in Rukongai are less deserving of your care and attention than blood-born Shinigami?"

The four officers that had been clustered near him, allowing the Fourth space to do their work, now began scrambling to opposite edges of the room. Three of them were members of the Ninth Division - the fourth was actually Kira's Lieutenant, there to supervise the half-dozen members of the Third who had come along on the joint patrol. All four of them were well-aware of Shuuhei's temper; usually well-controlled, but when released, it had all the destructive potential that was promised by the form of his Zanpakutou.

His face chalk-white, Iemura shook his head frantically, finally drawing in enough breath to call an order for stretchers in a voice that ran an octave higher than usual.

Grimly satisfied, Hisagi slipped out the door of the house and stepped onto the night-cooled grasses with a faint sigh. Half-leaning against the wall of the house, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, measuring the burning waves of his anger and slowly tempering them, acknowledging the emotion before slowly dismissing it.

"You handled that well."

Hissing in surprise, Hisagi spun to face Hitsugaya, trying to get his pulse under control. He was obviously more agitated than he realized if he hadn't sensed the young Captain, leaning quietly against the corner of the house less than two strides from him.

Then again... even sensing for him, now, he could barely register Hitsugaya's presence. Clearly, the ice-wielder was better at locking down his reiatsu than Shuuhei had realized.

"Iemura or my temper?" he asked finally, when he didn't feel like he still had the breath startled out of him, and was rewarded with a dry look.

"I meant Iemura, but either one would apply."

"I... thanks," Shuuhei said finally, painfully aware of how awkwardly the compliment sat. Hitsugaya was not a person from whom one expected much praise, and Hisagi was still reeling from the events of the evening. Death was common in Rukongai - exposure, starvation, street-fights, Hollow attacks, and yes, murder. Investigation of the latter two was under the purview of the Shinigami; this was not the first time that Shuuhei had landed on a murder to be investigated, nor would it likely be the last.

This one, however, promised to be difficult. The previous murders he'd investigated had been relatively straightforward - one person killed another in order to gain a possession. In the higher districts, where he had grown up, people were killed for water, for food, even for the clothing on their backs. It was horrific, yes, but it was, on some level, understandable. There was a motive and a clear gain for the killer.

This... what had been done here tonight... it made no sense. The ward-keeper had been murdered, brutally so, and the children attacked, but the house was not damaged, and, according to Matsumoto, nothing but life had been taken.

Narrowing his eyes, he watched as the first pair of medics maneuvered their way carefully out of the door, carrying the form of the oldest boy on a stretcher. Unohana moved silently after them, drawing and releasing her Zanpakutou as she cleared the broken doorway.

"I don't understand this," Hisagi sighed, folding his arms over his chest and slumping against the wall next to the younger Captain, watching the giant manta-ray like manifestation of Unohana's Minazuki coalesce on the field. "There's no motive, no gain. From what I've been able to tell, the woman's treatment of the children was strict but not unreasonable, and anyone killing her on _behalf_ of the children wouldn't have injured the children as well. It doesn't make sense!"

"Unfortunately," sighed Hitsugaya, pushing himself up off the wall, "that's because you're only looking at half the picture."

"Sir?" Bewildered, Hisagi pushed off after the other Captain, following him into the clearing and towards Minazuki, where Rangiku was helping to 'feed' the children to the enormous creature. The unusual fluids of the manifestation's stomach would help to speed the children's healing during the trip back to Seireitei, until they could be properly looked after at the Fourth Division.

"Come back to the Fourth with us. I think it's time you were... fully informed of the situation," Hitsugaya half-growled, leveling a hard stare at Matsumoto.

Ducking her head in something like shame, Rangiku handed up the next child and refused to reply.

* * *

When Minazuki landed in the courtyard within the Fourth Division barracks, it was met by a cluster of stretcher-wielding medics, long practiced with Unohana's remarkable shikai. Each child was carefully handed out of the creature's mouth by means of the particularly dexterous tongue, dutifully bundled onto a stretcher and carted inside for further treatment, regardless of their very clear origin.

Leaping down from the ray's broad back, Hisagi caught an unexpected flash of red approaching in the corner of his vision.

"Renji?" he said, startled, and the bleary-eyed Captain of the Fifth glanced up at him, one hand over his mouth to stifle a yawn. Trotting along behind him were one of the Fifth's medics, Rikichi, and, for some reason, Yamada Hanatarou.

"Unh," came the intelligent response, and Shuuhei found a weary chuckle rising in his throat despite the circumstances.

"Where's your better half, kohai?" Despite the two shadows he'd arrived with - both of whom were now hurrying off to help carry the last of the children inside - there was one particular kenseikan-adorned head that was noticeable only by its absence.

"Byakuya's at home, asleep," Renji answered, breaking off to yawn again, "where I prob'ly should be. But Sixth has an early patrol tomorrow, an' our Zanpakutou insisted that one of us be down here for... whatever the hell's goin' on. Picked those two up comin' out of the Fifth on the way here," he added, waving at Rikichi and Hanatarou's disappearing backs as Minazuki dissolved back into the scabbard Unohana held out for it. "What _is_ goin' on?"

As briefly as possible, Hisagi outlined the events of the night as far as he knew them, then had to repeat himself a few minutes later when Kira appeared as well, his own eyes sleep-swollen and bleary, one hand flexing around Wabisuke's guard in what looked like an attempt to strangle the blade.

It was something of a relief when Kira, instead of questioning him, simply moved beside Hisagi and leaned gently against him, the heavy linen sleeve of his shihakusho comfortingly soft against Hisagi's bare arm. Leaning back against the blond, Hisagi exhaled a deep, slow breath, feeling some of the tension knotting his shoulders release as he drank in the familiar energy of Kira's presence.

The muffled clearing of a throat brought the little group's attention around to where Hitsugaya stood a few paces away, a faint frown lingering on his features.

"I think," he said quietly, "that it's time for some explanations." And without another word, he turned and walked through the still-open door of the barracks, leaving the trio quite alone in the courtyard.

The three exchanged split-second glances, issued a collective sigh, and followed.

* * *

The medical bay the three were led to by a nervously stammering Hanatarou was probably one of the largest in the Fourth, quite big enough that having eleven occupied beds in it still left enough room for a cluster of chairs near the door. Gratefully dropping into the offered seats, Renji, Kira, and Shuuhei shot curious glances at Unohana and Isane - busy moving from bed to bed, checking the much-improved states of the children lying on them - and Matsumoto, who was slumped in her own seat, head in her hands. Hitsugaya had vanished somewhere in the halls of the barracks, and brief inquiries of Unohana's staff as to his location had been met with only shrugs.

"He said that I wasn't seeing the whole picture of the attack," Shuuhei said, not for the first time, still staring blankly at the children's still forms on the narrow beds. "But I don't know what it is I'm missing. The attack wasn't aimed at the children, and I don't know of any slighted drug-merchant who would go to those lengths. A pimp or a slave-dealer would have taken the children, not left them, and -"

"_Senpai_!" Renji's snap was loud enough to make every conscious person in the room jump; Unohana gave Renji a narrow-eyed glance, and he raised his hands in apology. "Sorry, Unohana-taichou. Shuuhei, if Hitsugaya said he was gonna explain, he's gonna explain, an' you babblin' on about it ain't helpin' matters. Or headaches."

Headaches? Looking at the furrow between Renji's eyebrows, the pinched lines around Kira's eyes, and Matsumoto's slumped posture, forehead cradled in her hands, Hisagi offered an apologetic grimace. Before he could apologize, though, the faintest whisper of ice-edged power rippled through to them, bringing everyone's attention to the door as it slid open and Hitsugaya stepped in.

Kin was only steps behind him.

* * *

Kira jerked in his seat as though he'd been shot; Hisagi's concerned gaze flicked between his partner and the weary face of Matsumoto, who was standing to speak to the young girl who had followed Hitsugaya in.

The girl was thin and long-limbed, with pale skin and white-blond hair. Seeing her standing face-to-face with Matsumoto, it was easy to note the similarities in their features - the curve of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, and the resignedly determined expression that seemed to have etched itself into both of their faces.

Matsumoto had... a daughter?

More than that, Hisagi realized, looking between the girl's lean, spare build and pale coloring, and the shocked face of Kira, still sitting beside him. Matsumoto had_ Gin's_ daughter.

* * *

"...and when I told him that we had plans to send Kin on to the Academy, he... nearly panicked," Matsumoto confessed, her shaking hands wrapped around a cup of restorative tea. "I don't think I've ever seen him so worried. And he said at the time it was because he didn't want her persecuted because of his crimes, but after tonight..."

"Extremists are not rational people," Kira pointed out, chewing lightly on his lip as he thought. "But if someone wanted to hurt Gin, they would attack you, Rangiku, or possibly me. Attacking the ward-keeper wouldn't affect him, and anyone who knows Gin would be aware of that."

"Maybe," Renji snorted, "but who really knew the guy? Shit, Kira, you were -" biting his tongue, the redhead broke off in midsentence, glancing across the circle of chairs to where Kin sat, arms curled around herself, head sagging. "Never mind."

"I was in a less than appropriate relationship with him, yes," Kira sighed, glancing briefly at Kin, but the girl sat motionless, giving no indication that she had heard. "That still gave me very little insight into his character, but I do know that the death of one woman that he had no direct connection to would not affect him."

"Wait a sec. Ran, when did ya tell him about Kin, exactly?" Renji asked sharply.

"Three - no, four - days ago now," Hitsugaya answered, when Matsumoto paused to think. "What's in your head, Abarai?"

"This all happened after Gin'd been told 'bout his daughter, tha's what," Renji answered. "I dunno that someone's tryin' to hurt him, or they woulda gone after Ran and Kin or Kira, like ya said, but maybe someone's tryin' to send a message to 'im?"

"You believe this attack was aimed to... _scare_ Gin?" Hisagi asked, his head reeling despite the fact he'd already drained two cups of the rather unpleasant tea. "That seems... a little extreme, kohai."

"I don't think so."

Silence fell for a moment, every pair of eyes - Kin's included - settling on Hitsugaya.

"Sir?" Shuuhei finally asked, frowning, when Hitsugaya didn't immediately elaborate.

Frowning, the ice-wielder pushed to his feet. "Matsumoto," he said, and shook his head faintly when both Rangiku and Kin shot him mildly exasperated looks, "Matsumoto _Rangiku_. Arrange for the third seat to cover the office if you wish to stay with the children, and please inform Unohana-taichou that I should be back within a few hours."

"I - wha - Captain! Where are you going at a time like this?"

Without answering, Hitsugaya set his empty cup back on the tea-cart parked against the wall, nodded goodbye to the assembled group, and slipped out, leaving the entire group staring after him in varying degrees of bewilderment.

* * *

Even without reiatsu channels, Gin could identify the exact moment the Senkaimon opened in the front of the shop - it was precisely when Kensei started swearing at the top of his lungs, loud enough to wake everyone in a three-block radius, never mind an innocent ex-Shinigami sleeping in the back room. Something about the reiatsu discharge of the gate interfering with the kidou shields that kept the shop protected; he had discerned that much from previous rants, although not the specifics. Hachi had set the shields himself, and it was therefore doubtful that even the Gate could disrupt them - but then again, he couldn't exactly feel what was going on, now, could he?

"Ichimaru."

Blinking, Gin turned to face the unexpected voice. "Toushirou-kun, s' good t' see ya?"

"Why was that a question?" the young Captain shot back irritably, striding into the room and dropping down to sit on the floor, a short distance from where Gin lay on his futon.

" 's... four-thirty in the mornin'," Gin pointed out, after a squinted glance at the clock on the wall. "Pro'ly not good news."

"It isn't," Hitsugaya answered bluntly. "The matron of the ward-house where your daughter used to reside was attacked and killed earlier tonight, and the rest of the children in the house were severely injured."

Horror swept across Gin's features, jerking him upright on the thin futon, his eyes wide as he frantically sought reassurance in Hitsugaya's face. "Kin -"

"Is fine," the younger man assured him softly. "She was elsewhere during the attack, and we've since moved all of the children to the Fourth Division. They'll be as safe there as anywhere."

Exhaling a shaking sigh of relief, Gin slumped as though all the bones had gone out of his body, and Hitsugaya watched levelly as the man trembled for a moment, drawing deep, grating breaths in an attempt to calm himself.

"M' girls are really okay?" Gin mumbled, after a long moment, and Hitsugaya almost smiled at the endearment.

"Rangiku is... shaken. She's quite close to all of the children, and she knew the ward-matron, Rei, quite well. Kin is fine, as far as I can tell. She's not exactly talkative."

" 'magine that," Gin chuckled weakly. "Kid with my an' Ran's blood that ain't chattin' your ear off."

Hitsugaya muffled a faint snort of amusement, shaking his head. "That's not why I'm here, Ichimaru. We're trying to investigate Rei's murder, and the facts are not adding up. There is no clear motive for someone to have killed Rei and left the children alive and uncaptured. Also, the fact that this attack comes only days after Matsumoto revealed Kin's existence to you makes me believe that there is a very personal nature to this attack." Leaning forward, Hitsugaya stared straight into the ice-pale eyes - unquestionably, where Kin had inherited the color of her own, even if the shape was so different. "I need you to confirm a statement I am about to make, Gin. I won't force you to answer a question, but I need to know if my assumption is correct."

Swallowing slowly, Ichimaru blinked back at him, not bothering to hide the worry in his eyes. "An' wha's that?"

"Aizen still has agents within the Soul Society."

* * *

Silence hung in the air for a long moment before Gin sighed softly and dropped back onto his futon, letting his head bounce slightly against the pillow.

"Hoped it'd be you tha' realized it," he said after a long moment. "Yer a smart one, an' tough, an' ya care about my Ran-chan. Th' agents ain't nothin' spectacular, fer the mos' part - jus' insidious, hm? Sneaky. Dun know how many're still loyal to 'im... but he had over a hundred durin' the plottin' years. Shinigami, commoners... coupla nobles, too." Rolling his head sideways, he looked at Hitsugaya's face, fighting for blankness against the alarm it wanted to display.

"Y un'erstand why I couldn' say anythin', righ'?" The question came softly, the voice unexpectedly wary, and Hitsugaya pulled himself out of his worry long enough to nod.

"He ensured your compliance with Rangiku's life, didn't he?"

"Mm-hm, Ran's, Kira's a lil' later on. S'why I almos' wish Ran hadn' tol' me 'bout Kin... happy as I am t' be a daddy, if I hadn' known 'bout her, she wouldn' be a target."

_Blessed gods, _Toushirou thought, feeling something like nausea twist his stomach. Gin would never be completely blameless - he had shed blood and taken life in the War, just as any of the enemy had, but to realize, now, that so much of his loyalty had been forced...

"Can you give us names? Anything to identify the agents?"

"C'n try. Never knew many, but it'll getcha started." Slowly levering himself back up, Gin rearranged himself to sit crosslegged on the futon, and met Hitsugaya's gaze with steady eyes. "Wan' ya t' promise me somethin', though."

One pale eyebrow arched. "Oh?"

"Wan' you... t' protect m' girls. As much as y' can. 'm the only one left who was so close to him - ya start bustin' people, an' they're gonna know who gave up th' names, an' they're gonna try t' hurt m' for it."

"There are times," Hitsugaya growled after a moment, "that I wish Aizen were alive again, so that I could kill him myself, in the most lingering, painful means conceivable."

Wide, weary eyes stared back at him. "Ain't ya ever heard tha' human phrase, 'be careful wha' ya wish for, ya jus' migh' get it?' "


	10. Escorts and Expectations

A/N: Hey, all! Just one thing before we get started; for those of you who don't remember exactly who Kuchiki Masa is, check back to chapter 24, _Continued Evolution_, of _Red Duty, Black Honor_. He's the Council member who objects so harshly to Byakuya and Renji's union, due in part to Renji's history, and he'll be a name to keep in mind for a little while yet.

Mind you, there's another, _much_ more familiar name that will be making itself clearly present within a few chapters...

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 10: Escorts and Expectations

* * *

"Ah-CHOO!"

His eyebrows raised in concern, Abarai Renji glanced up from the ledger he'd been reading to look at the young archivist. "Y' all right there, kid?"

"I beg your pardon, Byakuya-sama, Renji-sama," Kuchiki Fumio sniffed, wiping his nose on the cuff of his left sleeve. His right arm was laden with a half-dozen leather-bound volumes, similar to the ones scattered across the surface of the table in front of the two Captains. "No matter how many protective kidou we place on this portion of the Archives, it always seems to attract dust."

"That ain't so surprisin'," Renji grumbled, shoving away a few of the books that had already been looked through, so that Fumio would have room to deposit his burden on the already-overflowing table, and glancing around the gloomy basement library. "Who the heck actually wants t' read this stuff?"

Sitting beside his red-haired partner, Byakuya raised his eyebrow the merest fraction, not bothering to lift his gaze from the journal in front of him.

"Oh, shaddup," Renji grunted, without glancing in the other man's direction. "I said 'who _wants_ t' read it,' not 'who reads it.' An' I don' think even you _want_ t' be down here, Byakuya." Glancing down the labels of the newer books, he inspected them for a brief moment before sighing and picking up the ledger again.

Byakuya didn't respond beyond a very faint, entirely noncommittal hum, accompanied by the quiet turning of another page and a quickly-written notation on the half-filled sheet of paper at his elbow. "You are unfortunately correct," he answered after a long moment, scanning the last few pages of the book before setting it aside. "However, our investigation has lead us here."

"_Your_ investigation," Renji shot back, as Fumio sneezed again. "Diggin' through a century's worth a' dust-covered books -"

" - is, however irritating, an entirely valid investigative procedure," Byakuya finished, straightening up and setting his brush down with a sharp _clack_. "The financial records and household steward's journals may well reveal hard evidence of complicity in Aizen's conspiracy, as opposed to the dubious ramblings of a questionably sane man suspected in that selfsame conspiracy."

Even though the tone of his voice remained steady and level, it didn't take Senbonzakura's silent, worried prodding for Renji to know that Byakuya was genuinely upset. A careful touch against the spirit's energy reflected some of that turmoil back to Renji, and he hissed softly at the sickening swirl of cold fury, agonized betrayal, and genuine hurt that tumbled through him.

Six weeks ago, Hitsugaya Toushirou had come to the painful realization that Aizen's agents in the Soul Society continued to serve their vanquished master, and his confrontation with Ichimaru Gin had resulted in the names of almost two dozen conspirators, a handful of whom were among the noble classes. After a rush of arrests and a staggering round of interrogations, more names had been given up in hopes of bargaining. One of the most recent identities to be put forward as a conspirator was Kuchiki Masa, one of Byakuya's uncles and a former member of the Kuchiki Council.

Not bothering to fight back his scowl, Renji pushed his way clear of the table and rose from his chair, stalking the few steps to where Byakuya sat, mouth tight and hands trembling with the anger he could barely suppress.

Very slowly, Renji leaned against the back of Byakuya's chair and wrapped his arms around the noble's shoulders, exhaling a sigh into the softness of the black hair. Byakuya sat rigid in his seat, his shoulders wire-tight under his partner's arms.

" 's not your fault, y'know," Renji said softly, resting his cheek carefully against the head below his. The upper set of kenseikan scraped lightly at his cheekbone as he moved his head to speak. "Aizen lied like a rug, y' know that. Bet ya he promised that idiot uncle of yours everythin' he ever wanted in return for his support, an' Masa was dumb enough t' believe him," he added, trying to lighten his tone. When that received no reaction, he resorted to pursing his lips and blowing a cool stream of air over the noble's sensitive ear.

That earned him a faint squirm and an admonishing '_Renji!_', but Byakuya's hand also came up and settled over the back of Renji's wrist, cool fingers steadying against his skin, and Renji allowed himself a tiny smile of triumph as he felt the shoulders in his grasp relax slightly.

"What I really want t' know," he grinned, making sure to aim the words so that they tickled Byakuya's ear with every syllable, "is why Hitsugaya an' Soifon ain't sittin' here with us, pawin' through these damn dusty books, if they're the ones that got the damn names in the first place."

Byakuya exhaled what would have been a snort in a man of lesser breeding. "I believe you will find that Hitsugaya is previously occupied today," he murmured, "escorting his wayward Lieutenant's daughter to the Academy trials." It didn't need to be stated that Soifon was continuing the interrogations of the suspects, something Renji was perfectly well aware of and perfectly happy to leave her to.

"Oh," came the sudden exclamation from the corner, and Byakuya and Renji both turned their heads enough to regard a furiously-blushing Fumio. Although neither had forgotten the younger man's presence, he was trusted enough by both of them that they felt comfortable overlooking his presence.

"Somethin' the matter, Fumio?" Renji asked, straightening up slightly, but keeping his arms firmly around Byakuya's shoulders.

"Ah, no, not wrong, but - you said the Academy trials are today?" the young man asked, silver eyes wide behind his glasses. When both of them nodded, he asked in bewilderment, "Who is escorting your two wards, then?"

The faintest of smirks crossed Byakuya's face as he relaxed enough to settle his head against Renji's shoulder. "We've sent them in the care of our Lieutenant."

Snickering, Renji dropped his own head, resting his chin against the top of Byakuya's shoulder. "Not sure who I feel sorrier for."

* * *

Over the last couple of years, it had become something of a running joke in the Gotei that Kuchiki Byakuya and his sworn consort, Abarai Renji, shared everything. They were among the staggeringly small number of Zanpakutou-marked, both respected as prodigies, and their policy of 'sharing' responsibilities between their Divisions for patrols and training had somehow also expanded into sharing a Lieutenant.

It wasn't that Ise Minori minded being shared. Both Divisions had perfectly competent third-seats and supremely competent Captains, which was the only reason it was possible for her to assume Lieutenant duty for two Squads at once. Training, combat drills, and signing off on the occasional item of paperwork that wasn't taken care of by other parties was quite enough to keep her busy, and she genuinely enjoyed the work.

Some of the more... atypical duties, however...

"Why the hell're _you_ takin' us?" Haru had demanded, upon answering her knock on the small but sturdy Inuzuri hut the two siblings shared. His sister had promptly kicked him in the ankle and apologized while he was still hopping around and cursing, and Minori merely shook her head, already familiar with the boy's ill manners.

This was far from the first time she'd met the pair - she'd occasionally brought their weekly food packages down when her Captains were otherwise occupied, and twice she had ventured down to Inuzuri to spar against the children, helping to familiarize them with the swords Kuchiki-taichou had gifted them.

"I'm afraid all of the more familiar faces are occupied," she'd answered flatly, "but I assure you I'm quite capable of finding the Academy."

"You don't look that far out of it," the boy muttered sourly, jumping over Ko's second kick and stomping back into the house to retrieve his gear.

"Thank you," Minori answered with carefully measured sarcasm. "I'm not."

Haru snorted in reply as he strode back to the door, katana slung over one shoulder. "So how does someone wind up a Lieutenant, anyway?" he asked, as the three of them moved off.

Ordinarily, she would have dismissed the question as more of the boy's habitual snark, but a little of the edge had come out of his voice, and when she glanced towards him, his eyes were fixed steadily on the ground beneath his feet, watching the hard-packed dirt and dusty grass flicker by as they ran.

"You have to be good at the job," she answered, after a long moment of thought. "I study the Shinigami arts closely and make sure I can lead and train others in their performance. I learn the needs of the Divisions and the Captains I serve and try to anticipate them. I uphold the strength and honor of my Divisions and of Seireitei with respect to my fellow officers and the people we are sworn to protect."

A long moment passed with no sound but the rhythm of their feet and the rush of the wind against their ears, until Minori finally glanced back at Haru, one eyebrow at a questioning angle.

The boy had his face set, a strangely quiet determination burning at the back of his eyes, and, for once, was utterly silent.

Minori and Ko exchanged a glance as they kept running; Haru's docile silence seemed rather too good of a thing to last very long.

* * *

Unfortunately, they were right.

"Who's the kid playing dress-up?"

Not even ten steps onto the Academy grounds, and he has to come out with something like that...

"The 'kid', as you so eloquently put it," sighed Minori, pinching the bridge of her nose as she easily threaded her way through the milling throng of waiting students, sponsors, and loitering officers, "is Hitsugaya Toushirou of the Tenth Division. And he's not playing dress-up; he is their Captain. The youngest Captain in the history of Seireitei, as a matter of fact, as well as the strongest ice-wielder ever encountered. Calling him a child to his face will earn you a very serious case of frostbite, just so you're aware."

"He doesn't look that scary..." Haru countered, but his gaze turned wary when Minori shifted her path to join the young Captain and his silent shadow, a thin, pale girl with a black scarf tied tightly over her hair.

"Captain Hitsugaya," Minori nodded politely as their respective groups fell in beside one another. "I didn't realize you were on escort duty today. Hello, Kin."

"Matsumoto is somewhat indisposed," came the young Captain's rather exasperated reply, as Kin nodded her greeting. "A slight misunderstanding concerning the importance of her paperwork."

"Ah," Minori answered, amusement and distaste warring on her features for a moment. "Paperwork, the most prolific and least enjoyable part of duty."

"And in Matsumoto's case, the least productive," Hitsugaya snorted, before finally flicking an incurious glance over the two brown-haired children. "These are Kuchiki's?"

Without missing a step, Ko nailed her brother neatly in the back of the ankle with her toe just as he opened his mouth to object to Hitsugaya's careless address.

"Yes, sir," Ko answered, as her infuriated brother hopped several steps on one foot, hissing under his breath and trying to glower over his shoulder at her. "My name is Ko, and my brother is Haru. Please excuse him in advance for anything offensive he's certainly going to say."

"Bitch sister!"

"I rest my case."

"Why don't you both rest your tongues, and we can go get you lot checked in with the proctor?" Minori suggested, the faintest edge of irritation in her tone. Quite wisely, the pair fell silent, and the group wound its way to the entrance of the Academy courtyard.

* * *

Half an hour later, Hitsugaya and Minori had settled themselves on a pair of sun-warmed boulders at the edge of the treeline, resigned to a waiting period. As sponsored students, the three children were guaranteed acceptance to the Academy, but they were still required to go through the trials in order to determine their class placement. Because the three of them were the only applying students of the year being sponsored by Gotei Captains, they would be in the first round of those tested, a fact for which Hitsugaya was particularly grateful.

Over two hundred students sought admission for this year of the Academy alone. It was a good number, well above what it had been even a few decades ago. What was a little strange about it, though, was that almost three-quarters of the applicants were either Rukon stock, like Haru and Ko, or the 'unblooded' - Seireitei citizens of non-noble descent, like Kin. Not even seventy of the youths that had shuffled nervously into the courtyard were of noble blood.

"Times are changing," Minori murmured softly, the direction of her thoughts obviously following his own. "When I was there, the majority of the class was comprised of nobles..."

Hitsugaya nodded faintly, staring at the walls of the Academy as thoughts ran ragged through his mind. The War against Aizen had left the Gotei damaged; morale crushed, ranks depleted, the customs and traditions of two thousand years shattered in its wake. This new generation of Shinigami had grown up with the terror of war over their heads, the knowledge that collateral damage from a battle could destroy everything they had fought and struggled for.

His conversation with Gin rose, dragging sharp-edged memories through his thoughts, and he grimaced, almost sick with the thought of the horrors beginning anew.

* * *

"Is something wrong, Hitsugaya-taichou?"

Minori's voice, quiet and polite as it was, jerked him out of his contemplations in a way very few people dared to. Raising his head, he turned enough to shoot the woman a narrow-eyed glare, and she immediately ducked her head, expression contrite.

"I apologize, sir. I'm afraid I've gotten used to Abarai-taichou, and he rather prefers me to be direct. It wasn't my place to question you."

"No, it wasn't," he answered, a bit sourly, then sighed as Gin's words began circling his head again. "How much do you know about Kin's situation?"

"What Abarai-taichou told me, which is, I think, everything," came the shrugged answer. "Sixth is helping with the investigation of the ward-matron's murder, so I received a full briefing a month back, and I met with the rest of the children at the Fourth when I went in with an injury." A faint smile flicked across her face as she added, "Unohana-taichou's gotten quite attached to them, hasn't she? I think the Fourth has essentially adopted the lot." Pausing for a long moment, she frowned hesitantly before asking the next question. "Is it true, that the attack on the ward-house was aimed for Ichimaru?"

"That's the current conclusion, yes," Hitsugaya sighed. "He seemed quite sure of it when I spoke to him last."

Minori's face was quiet, but it wasn't difficult to watch the flashes of emotion behind her eyes - sharp anger, a flicker of disgust, the faintest thread of fear. "If only," she whispered, more to herself than to him, "Aizen's influence had died when he did."

Even after six weeks, Gin's words were still too fresh on his mind for Hitsugaya to answer.

* * *

_"There are times," Hitsugaya growled after a moment, "that I wish Aizen were alive again, so that I could kill him myself, in the most lingering, painful means conceivable."_

_"Ain't ya ever heard tha' human phrase, 'be careful wha' ya wish for, ya jus' migh' get it?' "_

_For a moment, Hitsugaya simply stared at Gin, his brow creasing in bewilderment, until horrified realization began to dawn in his eyes. _

"_Ichimaru, you don't mean -"_

"_Men like Sousuke," Gin interrupted, his voice quiet and his face oddly still, "gener'lly don' take kindly t' havin' other people mess up their plans, s' they tend to make contingencies, hm?"_

_For one brief second, the surging rush of horror choked Toushirou's throat, stealing his breath away. Ghost-memories of pain flashed over him - the injuries he had taken, the agony he had felt when the illusions had cleared and he saw who he had impaled on his blade -_

"_He's alive?" The words, just two tiny words, so small and so enormous, so overwhelming, so terrifying -_

_Sighing softly, Gin rolled onto his side on his narrow futon, turning his back to Toushirou and shuffling the blanket up over his shoulders. "Got no proof, no evidence. Just a bad feelin' tha' I shouldn' have. Got no way a' knowin' if 's even real, yanno. Could jus' be me goin' crazy..."_

"_Ichimaru!" Hitsugaya snapped, seizing the man's shoulder and shaking him. "Ichimaru!"_

"_G'night, Toushirou-kun," was the only reply he received, even when he sank to driving a kick into Gin's shoulder in a frantic fury, and finally, he stormed out of the room and into the massive training cavern in the basement of the shop, where he took nearly ten minutes to rein in his turbulent reiatsu and drag his heart rate under control. _

_Aizen... alive...?_

_

* * *

_

"Sir?"

Frowning to himself, Hitsugaya slowly shook his head.

It had shocked him when, on the eve of Gin's trial at the end of the war, he had realized that he gained a measure of Rangiku's faith in the man. It was not something deep enough to be called _trust_, nothing that strong - simply an assumption that Gin did have, somewhere in his body, a fraction of a gram of decency.

It had shocked him even more when his few encounters with the former Captain after Gin's neutralization and permanent parole with Urahara enforced that instinctive assumption, rather than disabusing it.

However... the number of ranking officers that still had any faith in Gin's word would be few, particularly with Gin questioning what was left of his own sanity. The older Captains, with the possible exception of Urahara, would be unlikely to believe any of the man's assertions without evidence, and the younger - Renji, Hisagi, and Kira, as well as Hitsugaya himself - while likely to be more receptive to Gin's suspicions, had less impact on the decisions of the Gotei than their seniors. Thus far, he had not even told Matsumoto of her former lover's theory. He couldn't, in good conscience, give voice to a rumor that would spread panic throughout Seireitei without proof, and repeated questioning of Gin had given him only silent, helpless refusal.

"Never mind, Lieutenant. It's nothing."

She might have ignored propriety enough to object if the low, clear sound of the Academy bell tolling hadn't echoed across the campus at that precise moment.

"First group's examination is finished," Hitsugaya said tersely, slipping down off his rock. "Let's collect the brats and get out of here."

* * *

They found the three children lingering by the door of the examination hall, watching a bit blankly as the next batch of students trickled in. Kin looked mildly shell-shocked, Ko faintly smug, and Haru... looked utterly furious.

"Results?" Hitsugaya asked blandly, stopping in front of the trio, and Ko smiled a little, gently tapping Kin's elbow.

"Kin-san and I were admitted to the first class," she told them, clear pride and relief on her face. Beside her, Haru gave an incoherent exclamation of mingled anger and frustration, and Ko shook her head with a sigh. "Haru would have been admitted to first class as well, if he had listened to my advice and not started swearing at the proctor."

* * *

"Swearing at the proctor..." Shaking his head, Renji dismissed the Hell Butterfly with a snort of laughter. "Fuckin' typical. Zaraki's gonna love him."

"Love whom?" Rukia asked, voice amused, as she maneuvered eight-months-pregnant-self awkwardly around the table and into one of the wrought-iron chairs. Kiyone fussed over her Lieutenant for a moment before trotting off to the counter to order a small army's worth of food for her superior.

"Haru," Renji answered. "Proctor at the 'cademy exams dropped him to second class 'cause the kid called 'im a 'fuckin' troll-faced jackwit,' " he explained, snickering until he caught a better look at Rukia's face. "Hey, you all right?"

"I'm fine," she answered, a little bit too quickly, and tried to turn her face away. Renji, however, was too quick, and rough fingers gently caught her chin before she could do so, gently raising her head again. Dark amber eyes scrutinized her, slowly, taking in the faint dark circles under her eyes and the lines of tension on her face.

A few years ago, he would have half-panicked, overwhelming her with questions. Now, he slowly released her chin and sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest and leveling a stern glare at her. "Talk."

"Nii-sama is rubbing off on you _way_ too much," she informed him irritably, slumping as best she could in her chair and mimicking his posture.

"Ain't a bad thing," came the muttered response. "Spit it out, Rukia. What's wrong?"

"It's nothing -"

He didn't actually need to say 'bullshit' out loud - the glower he sent at her spoke it quite clearly enough. Scowling, Rukia folded her arms a little tighter over her swollen midsection and turned her nose up with a huff. "Fine. If you must know, I've had a few early contractions - they're not serious!" she added sharply, when Renji almost jumped out of his seat. "I told Unohana about them the minute I felt them, and she said I'm fine until they become severe. It might still be days before I go into labor," she added, her voice dropping to a whisper as Kiyone trotted back, well-laden with an overflowing food tray.

"Eight months is kinda early, isn' it?" Renji asked in an undertone, and Rukia shook her head slightly.

"Unohana-san said the babies are both healthy, and given that I'm carrying twins, it wouldn't be unusual for me to deliver slightly premature," Rukia answered with tired patience. It was not the first time this had been repeated - it seemed like one or another of them was badgering Unohana with questions at least once a week, but that was significantly less often than it had been in the first weeks of Rukia's pregnancy. Back then, it seemed as though they couldn't get through a single day without a dozen questions cropping up, all of which had to be appealed directly to the Captain of the Fourth, regardless of how competent her officers were.

"Besides," Rukia repeated patiently, "I was checked out early this morning, and she said it will probably be at least another day or two -"

She broke off abruptly, and Renji looked up, not exactly surprised to see Rukia, white-faced, double over with a gasp, clutching at her abdomen.

"An' then again, might not," he said dryly, getting to his feet just as Kiyone came scrambling back to the table, tripping over several chairs in the process.

"Rukia-fukutaichou! Are you all right? Can I help you? Let me help you! Are you having pains?"

"I'm having a pain, all right," Rukia gritted back, but the comment evidently missed the mark, as Kiyone fluttered around the table, growing more frantic by the minute. Renji, meanwhile, was calmly scanning the other tables, looking around for source of the familiar pair of reiatsu he felt enter a few minutes before. Ah, there. Far corner - and already on their way over. Good.

"What do I do? How can I help? Oh, no, Rukia-fukutaichou, don't stand up! You shouldn't stress yourself! What are you -"

"_Kiyone_," Rukia snapped, bringing her subordinate to a screeching metaphorical halt, "in an emergency situation, you follow the orders of the highest-ranking officer present, remember?"

"Ah, yes!" the girl exclaimed, eyes brightening for a moment before panic stole across her face again. "Where do I find a ranking officer?"

Renji had to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from bursting out laughing, but the strangled sound that escaped him could have doubled for a polite clearing of the throat. Kiyone's gaze immediately swung to him, and she stared for a long moment at the pristinely white haori he wore before finally exclaiming, "Captain!"

"Yes," Renji answered, amused, and shook his head slightly when she snapped off a salute to him.

"What are your orders, Captain?"

"Return to the Thirteenth, and inform Ukitake-taichou that Rukia's goin' into labor and will be down at the Fourth 'till further notice," he said, shooting Rukia a sharp look when she opened her mouth to protest - only to be doubled over again by another contraction, which left her swearing breathlessly. "I'll handle her, a'right?"

"Yes, sir!" Kiyone barked, snapping off another salute before vanishing in a whipcrack of Shunpo, leaving a swirl of disturbed air behind her.

Shaking his head in amusement, Renji turned to face the familiar duo that had ventured over from the corner of the pavilion. "Rikichi, Hanatarou, 'm glad you're here."

"Sir," Rikichi answered quickly. "What can we do to help? Does Kuchiki-taichou need to be alerted as well?"

Renji blinked, turning his mind inward for a brief moment to focus on the cool scent of Senbonzakura's energy. The blade-spirit reached out to him instantly, and Renji saw a flash of vision - Byakuya at his desk in the Sixth, suddenly jerking his head up - no doubt as one of the Zanpakutou informed him of the news - before springing up so quickly he nearly upset his chair and vanishing from the office, leaving his bewildered third-seat behind.

"Nah, Byakuya knows," Renji answered, shaking his head slightly to dislodge the uneasy sensation of being somewhere he wasn't. "He'll meet up with us a' the Fourth. Rest of Sixth is gonna be pretty confused, though, he took off like a bat outta Hell and didn' tell Dayo where he was goin'. You head back there an' get things sorted. Hanatarou, you an' I are gonna escort Rukia down t' the Fourth, an' then I'll go track down Urahara."

"U... Urahara, sir?" Hanatarou asked, bewildered, as Rikichi took off. "Why Urahara?"

"Put me in touch with Ichigo, a' course," Renji answered. "Gotta let him know he's about t' be a father."

* * *

O

* * *

Tee hee. Yes, I am a highly evil authoress. Waste half the chapter on OCs and then cut off before Rukia delivers? Although I do finally explain why Gin hasn't flat-out told anyone about Aizen's return...

Well, no worries, we're back to the real cast next week, and you get to meet Ichigo and Rukia's twins for the first time! And since I already have them picked out, can anyone guess what their names are going to be?


	11. Under the Crown

Hey, everybody! Finally getting back to my original Wednesday schedule - and I'll try to stick to it this time! Hope you all enjoy the chapter, let me know what you think!

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR **

Chapter 11: Under the Crown

* * *

Case of chocolate bars. Case of lollypops. Case of chewing gum. Case of condoms. Case of soul candy dispensers... Wait, condoms?

Blinking in confusion, Shinji had turned halfway back to the not-particularly-innocuous box sitting on the far corner of the bottom shelf when the cellphone in his back pocket vibrated. That morning, he hadn't actually considered how much having something unexpectedly buzzing against his buttock was going to make him jump, or he might have taken care to relocate it before he began taking inventory, a task which seemed to forever involve him sticking his head under the shelves of the metal storage units.

Three rings later, nursing a lump on the back of his head, Shinji staggered out of the storage closet and dropped down to sit on a floor cushion before answering his phone.

"Yeah?"

"Hirako." Renji's voice was familiar and steady on the other end of the line, but there was a tightness to it that was unusual in the laid-back Captain. "You busy?"

_Yeah, busy taking inventory of reasons he needed to ban Lisa from the storage closet. _"Nothing that can't wait," he answered, putting as much shrug into his voice as possible. "Whattya need?"

"Need ya t' take a message to Ichigo fer me," came the relieved response, and Shinji arched an eyebrow at the phone.

"Lemme get this straight, Akapine. Ya want me to haul your bitchy-ass brother-in-law out of class and tell him... what, exactly?"

"T' keep his fuckin' phone on, for one thing," Renji grumbled back. "Particularly when his wife is gettin' near her friggin' due date."

Shinji's bark of delighted laughter very nearly drowned out Renji's added, "And don't call me Akapine!"

* * *

_Inhale and lift. Exhale and lower. Inhale -_

The shrill buzz of the phone startled Tatsuki so much that she nearly dropped the press bar. Wincing, she corrected her grip on the weight, palms damp against the textured metal.

"I'll get the phone," called a low voice from the other side of the apartment, quickly followed by the soft beep of the handset being answered, and Tatsuki huffed with faint relief as she raised the bar again.

"Yasutora residence... no, he's not. Tatsuki is here." A long pause, then, "Yes, I'll tell her. Thank you, Hirako-san."

_Hirako_? Dropping the weight back into its brackets, Tatsuki sat up and scrubbed the sweat off her face with a towel, glancing towards the doorway just as Nova poked his head around the doorframe.

The little modsoul had been living with Chad ever since Urahara had resumed his position as Captain of the Twelfth Division almost four years ago. After Chad had proposed, he and Tatsuki had moved into a new apartment together, and Nova had come along and quietly begun taking care of the household chores. Initially, Tatsuki had protested him playing the part of a servant, but he had shrugged it off, calmly pointing out that he had little else to do with his time, and would rather be useful than sit in a corner all day.

Faced with that logic, Tatsuki had stopped protesting, although she still felt vaguely guilty about 'taking advantage' of the modsoul. He wasn't exactly constrained by his position, though; they kept his gigai in the apartment for him, propped up in the corner of the linen closet like a macabre joke while he was occupying his plush form. He had, with some trial and error and the help of a Soul Badge like Ichigo's, learned how to move from one form to the other on his own, and freely swapped forms back and forth as he felt necessary.

"What did Shinji want?" Tatsuki asked, genuinely bewildered, as Nova padded into the room.

"Renji just called him. Rukia is going into labor, and Shinji is going to tell Ichigo."

"Shinji's going to go announce to Ichigo, in front of his entire class, that Rukia's gone into labor and he needs to go cross dimensions to be with her," Tatsuki repeated, and barked a laugh when Nova nodded faintly. "Well, that's going to go over well."

* * *

"Ichigo." Whose voice was that?

"_Ichigo..." _He could recognize Zangetsu, but -

"Oy, Ichigo!" That familiar drawl wasn't -

"Mister Kurosaki..."

"_HEY, KING!"_

His Hollow's shout jerked Ichigo out of his troubled doze, just in time to snap one hand out to seize the projectile hurtling towards his head. Blinking blearily, he sat up, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes for a moment, until he realized that every single person in the classroom was staring at him with various combinations of disbelief, awe, and no little amount of nervousness.

A little belatedly, he glanced down at his hand, groaning when he took in the sight of the egg-sized foam-rubber brain sitting on his palm, and glancing up at his teacher with a wince. Beck-sensei had carried that little brain-ball with him from the first day of class, for the express purpose of throwing it at anyone who yawned or, heavens forbid, fell asleep in class.

And Ichigo had just snatched it out of midair before his eyes were even open. "Martial arts training," he said shortly, pitching the brain back towards his teacher, who caught it with raised eyebrows. The expression was understandable; Ichigo was one of the few students whom he's never needed to 'brain' before, always perfectly attentive, never so much as letting his head droop.

What Beck-sensei didn't know, however, was the exact nature of the juggling act that comprised Ichigo's life. Karakura's ever-present Hollow problem had reared its head in an unexpectedly grand fashion the previous night, with over two hundred Hollows of various strengths swarming over the city during the wee hours of the morning. The mess had dragged every available hand, scheduled or not, into fighting, and Ichigo was exhausted. Ishida, who had been forced to get in close to a pissed-off Adjuchas to defend one of the inexperienced Shinigami in Karakura on training, had been forced to stay home today due to his own injuries. Even Orihime's powers took time to work, and they had barely managed to defeat the Hollows before dawn.

"For fuck's sake, Ichigo, if you're gonna sleep through class, try not to be so damned obvious about it," snickered a voice from the door of the classroom, and Ichigo had another moment of confusion when he saw Shinji lounging against the doorframe, smirk fully in place. That at least explained the unknown voice that had penetrated his mental fuzzies, but -

"What are you doing here, Shinji?"

"Deliverin' a message, dumbass. Renji called. He said t' turn yer fuckin' phone on - especially given Rukia's... _condition_."

It took the space of a heartbeat for the words to sink through Ichigo's exhaustion-fogged mind.

The second they did, though, he went from a study in still-life to a blur of motion, reiatsu flaring bright in Shinji's senses as he went about snatching his books from his desk, repacking his bag, and clearing the aisle between the desks at a run.

"Mister Kurosaki!"

"I'll be back, I'll explain later!" Ichigo shouted over his shoulder, already hurtling out the door. "Fucking hell, Shinji!" he hissed, as soon as the pair of them were in the hall and clear of any listening ears, "why didn't you say something sooner? What's wrong with Rukia?"

"Nothing's wrong with her, dipshit," Shinji snickered, easily matching Ichigo's flying steps. "You're just about to be a daddy, that's all."

Ichigo missed a step trying to turn a corner, stumbled, smacked his head on the wall, and rebounded, cursing as he staggered to a stop. "Shinji," he demanded, his voice a low growl as he glared at the Visored leader, pressing one hand over his throbbing temple, "are you telling me that Rukia is in labor _this very minute_ and you're dicking me around here?"

"Nah, she was only having contractions when Renji called," the blond grinned back, utterly unrepentant as Ichigo rubbed the side of his head, seething. "Mind you, that was a little while ago..."

"Why do I put up with you?" Ichigo wondered aloud, straightening his bag again before setting off down the hall at a more reasonable jog, Shinji keeping pace without comment. "I have to go home and get Kon. Can you have the Senkaimon open for me and let them know I'll be there in about ten minutes?"

"Sure thing," Shinji answered as they pushed their way through the exit doors, already turning right as Ichigo headed left. "And hey, Ichigo? Congratulations."

Ichigo's answering smile, however faint, took away the years that the cost of the War had added to his face, and for a split second, Shinji could see the person that the savior of the Soul Society might have been if Aizen had never existed.

It was gone again in the blink of an eye, as Ichigo nodded his thanks and set off, again at a run, but the impact of that smile left Shinji rooted in place for a long moment before he collected himself enough to head back to the Shoten.

* * *

The painfully sharp flare of Ichigo's reiatsu, panic-tinged, jerked Uryuu out of his restless half-doze and bolt upright in bed, blinking owlishly as he tried to reorient himself. At home, in his own bed, aching faintly from head to toe, with the gentle scent of Orihime's powers still clinging to him, all of yesterday's injuries healed.

In the distance - near the college, he realized, after a second of thought - Ichigo's reiatsu dimmed down again, pulled back under control as the panic behind it faded. He could feel another presence near Ichigo's, the faintly sullen autumn-scented energy that marked Hirako Shinji, and spared a brief moment to wonder what the Visored leader needed with Kurosaki before the apartment phone rang in the living room.

"Moshi moshi!" came the cheerful chirp of Orihime's voice, and Uryuu suppressed a smile as he very carefully slid out of bed, taking a moment to find his balance on sleep-numbed legs before heading towards the living room.

"Oh, Hirako-san... yes, I felt him, is everything all right? ...she is? That's wonderful! Is he going across now? And are we expected to join him? ...no, he's still asleep, or he was, Ichigo-kun might have woken him up just now, though..."

Reaching the doorway, Uryuu stopped and leaned against the cool wood for a moment, waiting for the feeling to work its way back into his legs and feet. Orihime had healed the worst of his injuries just after the battle, but her strength was not endless and he was far from the only one who had been hurt. She had patched him together with what was very nearly the last of her own strength, draining herself to the point of collapse. Chad and Tatsuki had brought them home, and Uryuu had retained enough cognitive function to email his professors for the day to warn them of his absence before collapsing into bed beside his wife. She'd awoken before he had, and completed his healing without even waking him.

Now, he rested his cheek against the painted wood, watching with a faint smile on his face as Orihime paced back and forth behind the overstuffed royal-blue sofa, handset of the phone in her ear, twining the cord around her finger as she moved. (They insisted on using corded phones for the simple reason that cordless handsets were perpetually lost in their house - after the last one had turned up in the rice-cooker, nicely steamed along with the rest of their evening meal, they had surrendered to the inevitable leash of the cords.)

Considering how she had looked six hours before, when the pair of them had dropped, exhausted, into their bed, Orihime's condition had clearly much improved. She was freshly scrubbed, wrapped in a clean yukata, with the ashy tone was gone from her skin, and she was smiling brightly even if her eyes were still tired. For reasons beyond almost anyone's comprehension - Hirako's included - Orihime genuinely liked the irritable blond Visored, and Uryuu was always happy to see his wife smile.

"Oh, me?" Orihime asked, blinking into the phone in response to some question of Hirako's. "I'm fine now, I can wake him and we'll see you in a few minutes? All right. Thank you, Hirako-san!" She replaced the phone gently in the cradle, a wide grin bubbling up on her face as she did so, then, rather to Uryuu's surprise, clapped her hands together softly and bounced in place, muffling delighted giggles into her hands.

"Good news?" Uryuu asked after a moment, his voice still rough from sleep if not his injuries - the damned Hollow had hit him in the throat, as well as virtually everywhere else, and repairing the more delicate tissue of his vocal cords had taken a backseat to fixing things like his spinal column and trachea.

Orihime squeaked slightly, this time jumping in startlement rather than joy, and spun to face him, her eyes going from joyous to alarmed in a blink. "Uryuu! You shouldn't be out of bed yet, with all the healing I had to -"

"I'm all right," he cut in, pitching his voice as soft as he could as he crossed the width of the living room and rounded the couch to her, pressing a gentle kiss to her worried mouth. "You know perfectly well I've been through worse."

"You... worse... I - I know," she whispered back, her voice breaking slightly, and Uryuu grimaced as he saw the faraway expression dim her silvery eyes, saw the trembling start in her hands and shoulders, heard the shaking acceleration of her breath.

"Orihime, it's all right. I'm right here," he whispered, drawing her gently into his arms as he'd done so many times before, pressing her back against his chest. "Match your breathing to mine, slowly."

It took a few torturous seconds before the waves of fear ebbed enough in Orihime's mind to let her do so, but after a few heartbeats of eternity, she drew a deeper breath than the shallow gasps she'd been fighting and sank back against Uryuu's strength.

"Tell me what you see," he ordered gently, wrapping one arm around her waist to support her weight, the other crossed over her chest and clutched between both of her hands, pressed against her shoulder, to support her spirit. "Talk to me, Orihime."

"Hueco Mundo," she whispered first, although that was hardly necessary. Most of these waking nightmares stemmed from that place, although there were a few blighted spots in other worlds - Karakura Park, where Chad had nearly died, his arm split apart under the force of Yammy's blow, within Seireitei, where she'd seen Ichigo nearly lose himself at the end of the War, but the greatest majority of horrors had been in the land that bred them.

"On the dome... just after Kurosaki-kun was... and Ulquiorra... he'd just taken your... your hand... you were so hurt and there was so much blood, but you were so composed," she whispered, drawing in a deeper gasp of breath even as Uryuu breathed steadily against her back. "And I wasn't hurt, wasn't bleeding at all, and I was falling apart, still _am_ falling apart, I'm weak -"

"We both know perfectly well that Hueco Mundo left virtually everyone - including Kurosaki and Abarai - with screaming nightmares," Uryuu countered, rubbing his thumb in a gentle circle around her navel. "You are no weaker than they are, Orihime. Look at the memory. What do you see?"

"You... so hurt... you've lost your hand..."

It had taken weeks after the War for this to manifest; the spells of helpless terror, bound to memories of the pain her friends had suffered. It had gotten so bad that even Urahara had been forced to admit defeat, when long talks and calming teas didn't seem to be helping the symptoms any, and she'd been forced to place herself in the hands of an ordinary, mortal doctor. Had she told her friends of the severity of her problems, Ryuuken or Isshin's help could have been enlisted, but, not wanting to burden her friends with what she saw as her own weakness, Orihime had been determined to fight through the matter outside of the group.

The doctor Orihime had gone to had been fed a heavily edited version of her ordeal, structured around kidnapping and a gang war, diagnosed Orihime with post-traumatic stress disorder in short order, and sent her on her way with a prescription for medications that made the world blur around the edges and left contact with her Shun Shun Rikka impossible.

She'd abandoned the medication after a few weeks, unable to bear the disconnectedness that it left her with, and begun a long string of sleepovers and parties at her apartment that kept enough friendly noise around her to keep the worst of the attacks at bay. Having Kurodo move into her apartment when Urahara returned to Seireitei also helped, if for no other reason than that he could provide a consistent voice.

Now, between the two of them, she and Uryuu were fighting to work through the fractured horrors in her mind, facing down as many of the memories as they could, until they slowly began to lose their power over the girl.

"I'm right here," Uryuu said softly, pressing her gently, carefully against his chest. "Feel my hands, Orihime. I'm right here, I'm whole."

It took a few long minutes, filled with the sound of Orihime's too-quick breaths and Uryuu's low, gentle voice, before her breathing finally slowed to normal and she turned enough to regard him with a guilt-laden look. Before the first syllable of apology could leave her lips, though, Uryuu held up a firm hand, forestalling the words.

"I have told you before, don't apologize. It's not something that you control, Orihime."

"I know that," she sighed wearily, turning in his embrace so that she could lay her head against his shoulder. "It's just... it's been so _long_! Everyone else has recovered from what happened to them -" Uryuu snorted slightly - "and I'm still having these fits at the least provocation!"

"First off," Uryuu began firmly, slipping one hand under her chin and turning her teary, guilt-heavy gaze up to meet his, "everybody else is not recovered. I know perfectly well that Ichigo still has nightmares - for that matter, _I_ still have nightmares. It was a war, Orihime, one that had a profound impact on our lives. It's not something that we can merely forget."

"That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to move on," she declared, a little of her usual determination seeping back into her voice. "I don't ever want to forget what happened, what we all did for one another, but I need it to stop crippling me."

And it was, he knew that. They both knew that. It was crippling her to the point that she hadn't summoned Tsubaki since the end of the War, leaving permanent dark circles under her eyes from the nightmares not even sleeping medications could keep away, dragging her under waves of panic at any given moment.

Shaking her head slightly, Orihime leaned up to lightly kiss the tip of his chin before gently pulling out of his embrace. "We'd better hurry and get dressed if we're going to go," she smiled faintly. It was an abrupt change of conversation, but Uryuu ignored that for the time being as he followed her back into the bedroom.

"Go where, exactly? And does this have to do with Ichigo's reiatsu surge earlier? Or Hirako's phone call?"

"Yes, yes, and Seireitei," Orihime called over her shoulder, her head and shoulders vanished into the standing wardrobe that anchored one corner of their bedroom. "Rukia-san is in labor!"

Oh. Uryuu blinked, processing that for a long moment as he stared, eyes unfocused, at the carved door of the wardrobe. Well, that certainly explained Ichigo's panicked energy a few minutes ago...

A flying shirt alighting on his head dragged him out of his train of thought, and he pulled the offending article of clothing off his face to see that it was, in fact, one of his own Quincy tunics. Not in the least bit appropriate for journeying celebrating the birth of two Shinigami children... which was all the more reason to wear it, really. He wouldn't be a proper Quincy if he didn't tweak those arrogant bastards at every possible opportunity.

"I take it we're meeting everyone there?" Uryuu asked, chuckling faintly in approval as Orihime pulled assembled her own outfit - a long, flowing blue skirt and a blue-and-white top, the colors of which precisely echoed his own Quincy gear.

"Ah, yes, Hirako-san said he'll call everybody. Something about he'd rather be a message-relay than do inventory? Anyway, he already went and got Ichigo and Ichigo is going over any minute, he's already called Chad but Chad wasn't home and Tatsuki was, and he's going to call Mizuiro and Kiego and tell them..."

As Orihime rattled cheerfully on, Uryuu dressed rapidly, unable to keep the small smile from his face. Twin Shinigami children, with bloodlines like that? Ichigo was never going to know what hit him.

* * *

Having left his body - his painfully slow, only-too-human body - off with Kon, with instructions to invent a viable excuse and return to class, Ichigo hurtled along the rooftops of Karakura at as close to full speed as he could manage in the crowded cityscape.

The trip to the Shoten took minutes, although every second that ticked by seemed to echo in his ears with an unforgiving sound. When he dashed through the open doors of the shop, he found the Senkaimon raised and waiting for him as a clearly bored Shinji lounged against a support pillar next to it, chatting on his cellphone.

Hirako flipped Ichigo a casual wave as he went past; Ichigo flipped him off in response and dove into the next world.

* * *

"Shit, kid, what kept ya?"

"Shut up, Renji, I got here as fast as I could," Ichigo snapped back, pushing through the door three steps ahead of Kotetsu Isane, who had been escorting him in. His eyes, wide and worried, darted across the large private waiting room to fix immediately on Rukia, pacing the length of the far wall with Matsumoto at her side.

"Rukia, are you -"

"I'm fine, dumbass," came the immediate answer, and Ichigo dropped his head back with a sigh.

"Are you implying, Kurosaki, that Unohana-taichou is incapable of providing adequate care for my sister?" That, of course, was Byakuya, standing near the window with his arms folded tightly across his chest. To the untrained eye, he looked utterly composed, but Ichigo had known him long enough now to realize that his noble brother-in-law was virtually vibrating with tension.

For one thing, Renji was standing behind Byakuya, calmly rubbing the man's shoulders, and Byakuya clearly hadn't noticed. Given that Ukitake, Kyouraku, Unohana, Kiyone, Nanao, and, for some reason, Matsumoto, were all in the room, Byakuya would surely have discouraged the open display of affection before now if he'd been aware of it.

Biting back his first response - _'No, I'm implying that I care about my wife'_ - because that would have been intolerably cruel to Byakuya, Ichigo merely shook his head. "We all worry about the people we love, Byakuya. It's natural. Don't tell me you've never freaked out about Renji before," he added, only half-teasingly, and was rewarded with an arched eyebrow in response.

"I have faith in Renji's ability to take care of himself," Byakuya answered dryly, and the redhead chuckled faintly and leaned over Byakuya's shoulder to press a light kiss over one cheekbone, leaving the noble's face ever-so-slightly pink. Huh. Maybe he had known Renji was rubbing his shoulders, after all.

"Oh, come off it, Bya-kun," muttered Kyouraku. "The last time Abarai was hospitalized, you about drowned half the Gotei with the angst levels in your reiatsu."

"...which is not to say I have never been concerned for him," Byakuya allowed with a sigh, "or Rukia. However, I have faith in Unohana-san's ability."

"Of course you do," Ichigo shot back, feeling some of his anxiety dissipate with the familiarity of the verbal sparring. "Which is why you're strung tighter than one of Uryuu's bowstrings right now."

"He's got ya there, y' know," Rangiku snickered from across the room, and found herself on the receiving end of Byakuya's infamous Kuchiki glare. She chuckled back, quite unfazed; years of being subjected to Hitsugaya's temper had left her with an incredibly high tolerance for dirty looks.

"Rangiku-san, why are you even here?" Ichigo asked, turning his back on the very amusing sight of Byakuya being stunned speechless at his glare being ineffective.

"I invited Rangiku-san here as Rukia's support," came the soft response - from Unohana, still sitting in a chair against the wall opposite Byakuya, her eyes closed as she focused her attention on monitoring the fluctuations of Rukia's reiatsu. "Given that she is the only one of Rukia's companions to have previously delivered a child, I thought her support would be more meaningful than that of an unfamiliar nurse."

"Oh. That... makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't have thought of it," Ichigo answered absently, ignoring the faint wave of snickers at the phrasing. "Where is your kid, anyway, Rangiku-san?"

"At th' Fifth." That, much to Ichigo's surprise, was from Renji. "Kin, Haru, an' Ko all weaseled their way into combat trainin' with my Squad this afternoon. Think Minori's probably had it t' here with all of 'em, but they need the practice. Academy," he added, at Ichigo's questioning glance. "First class for th' girls, but Haru opened his mouth an' got knocked down t' second."

There wasn't much to say to that, but Unohana lifted her head as Ichigo was still contemplating his response. "Rukia -" the woman began, but was cut off as the young Lieutenant gave a sudden gasp and doubled over, her face going chalk-white. Rangiku's quick grasp on her shoulders was the only thing that prevented her from collapsing completely to the floor.

"Enough," Unohana said, unfolding herself from her chair with liquid grace. "Isane."

Within the blink of an eye, the silver-haired woman appeared at her Captain's side, expression fretful as ever as she bent to wrap her arms around Rukia's shoulders. Unohana quietly slid open a door on the back wall, revealing a brief glimpse of the Fourth Division's birthing-room, and Isane carefully lead Rukia through the open door. Ichigo immediately made to follow, only to be barred by Unohana's upraised hand.

"No, Kurosaki-san," the woman said, her voice unyielding. "In your current state, you will be a hinderance more than a help. You will be permitted inside once the labor is complete." And with that, she snapped the door shut, leaving Ichigo to stare, dumbfounded, at the barrier.

When he recovered from his shock, he demonstrated a vocabulary of invective that left even Renji impressed - although he did so quietly enough that Unohana was not particularly likely to hear him - until Rukia let out an earsplitting shriek on the other side of the door. Ichigo paled for a moment, then reached for the door, determined to be at his wife's side, regardless of Unohana's commands -

- and promptly slumped to the floor, unconscious, as an equally pale but far more composed Byakuya jabbed a kidou into the back of his neck.

"It is in everyone's best interest if Unohana's orders are obeyed," he offered simply, when a variety of shocked, bewildered, and downright amused expressions turned his way. Renji - one of the amused, and making no great effort to hide the grin on his face - stepped forward and casually picked the young Visored up, bundling him into the chair Unohana had abandoned.

* * *

Without a timepiece in the waiting room, it was impossible to measure how much time elapsed. Unohana's use of medical kidou alleviated enough of Rukia's pain to reduce her screams to occasional gasps and cries, and the collected group in the waiting room still twitched anxiously at every one of them.

Renji and Matsumoto paced, he near the windows and a silent, still-vibrating Byakuya, she at the back of the room, near the door of the birthing-room. Ukitake meditated, eyes shut and his face peaceful, while Kyouraku napped, his head resting in Ukitake's lap. Nanao was, in theory, reading a book, but her eyes weren't moving across the page. Kiyone sat and jittered until Byakuya clearly began contemplating knocking her unconscious as well, prompting Renji to stop pacing and return to rubbing his partner's shoulders.

Those who had arrived in the meantime - Uryuu and Orihime, Tatsuki and Chad, a fretful Urahara and an amused Yoroichi, had clumped together in one corner, playing a rather halfhearted game of cards while they waited. Isshin would, no doubt, be along as soon as he could dump his patients off on Karakura General, assuming Ryuuken let him. Uryuu, at least, had a suspicion that his father would 'conveniently' not be in the office whenever Isshin's requests came through.

Ichigo, knocked blissfully unconscious by Byakuya's kidou, stayed asleep in his chair until another set of screams - the high, sharp wails of newborn infants - split the air, shattering Byakuya's focus and his control of the kidou.

"Kurosaki-san, Kuchiki-san, Abarai-san," Unohana said, sliding the door open. "Please, come in and meet your new family members."

* * *

Rukia looked so tiny on the white bed, exhausted and fragile as she cradled the two children against her chest, but Ichigo didn't hesitate as he crossed the room, bending forward to leave a gentle kiss on her sweat-damp forehead.

"Congratulations, Kurosaki-san," Unohana murmured, when he looked up again. "You have two healthy children, a son and a daughter."

"I..." At a loss for words, Ichigo could only stare between the medic beside him and his family, lying before him on the clean sheets.

Smiling indulgently, Unohana carefully gathered one of the children from Rukia's grasp, placing the blanket-wrapped bundle in Ichigo's arms. He shot her a startled, half-terrified glance until she gently corrected the placement of his hands, pressing on his elbow to encourage him to rock the infant he held.

Slowly swaying to the pounding of his own heart, Ichigo looked down into the red face of the sleeping child in his arms, blinking in surprise to see the wisps of orange-gold hair falling across the tiny forehead.

Without asking, he knew that the child he held was his daughter. And, just as instinctively, he knew what her name had to be. "Masaki," he whispered, touching one finger to the center of her forehead.

Behind him, Rukia shifted their son in her arms, pushing back the blanket over his head enough to reveal the shock of pure-black hair that crowned him. Smiling, Ichigo sat down next to Rukia on the bed, brushing gentle fingers across his son's brow. "Kaien."

* * *

With the focus of the rest of the room turned towards the two children in his sister's arms, Byakuya slowly stepped to the back corner of the room, raising his head to focus narrowed eyes on the ceiling. Or rather, the butterfly perched on the ceiling, slowly wafting pure-black wings.

The ceiling was far too high for Byakuya to reach it without resorting to undignified measures - he utterly refused to leap like an animal - and, given that he did not wish to attract attention, he was forced to do nothing more than glower at the butterfly until it slowly detached itself from the white plaster before fluttering downwards, well away from him and moving in the opposite direction.

Butterflies, apparently, were not adept at predicting Shunpo. A single, tiny step, and Byakuya bridged his hands together, his fingers forming the bars of a flesh-and-bone cage to imprison the dark insect without harming it.

"Somethin' wrong, Byakuya?" Renji called from across the room, and Byakuya glanced over to meet his partner's concerned eyes.

"No," he answered smoothly, giving his head the faintest twitch of negation. "I must attend to something, however. I will return in a moment." Without waiting for their responses, he nudged the door open with his foot and slipped carefully out of the room, being careful not to let Renji - the only one of them still watching him - see the butterfly.

The private waiting room adjoining the birthing-room was now empty; anyone who was not immediate family had been chased out to the main waiting room, no doubt under Unohana's strict supervision. Still, this privacy was more than enough.

Very carefully, Byakuya raised the cage that his hands formed until they were at eye-level, and stared at the annoyed butterfly within his hold.

"I am," he began slowly, "Kuchiki Byakuya, twenty-eighth head of the Kuchiki Clan, a family line granted nobility by His Majasty's grace. The two children whom you seek out are born to my sister, Kuchiki Rukia, and are the only hopeful births to grace our Clan since I myself was born. They are the last hope of retaining the strength of the Kuchiki family. Generations ago, it was by the grace of the King that our family was established. Is it to be at your whim that we fall, as well? Your Majesty, I beg a boon of you. Leave these children to us."

The butterfly, which had remained still against his palm for the length of his speech, gave a sharp flutter with its wings. Obligingly, Byakuya lifted his hand away from over the creature, removing the top of the cage and allowing it to fly free. The butterfly circled over his hand once, twice, before winging upwards, just above the level of his head, and vanishing into thin air.

Exhaling a breath that shook more than he ever wished to admit, Byakuya slowly turned and slid back into the birthing-room to rejoin his family.

* * *

Hours later, Byakuya and Renji stepped through the gates of the Kuchiki manor. The grounds were dark and quiet, lit only by the occasional standing lantern, and the pair of them drank in the peace after having spent the evening with most of the ranking Gotei officers dancing about, eager to meet Ichigo and Rukia's children.

They had barely had time for three breaths, though, when the soft sound of running footsteps brought them both from their reveries. Dashing up the path to them was Riko, one of the house's maidservants.

The last time either man had seen Riko run was just after their joining ceremony, when the Kuchiki Council had tried to usurp Byakuya's authority and demand he annul his union with Renji. At that point, she had been clearly alarmed, her near-eternal composure slipping enough to dishevel her hair, smudge the paint on her lips.

Right now, Riko's composure and appearance were perfect, every hair in place, her kimono settling perfectly around her feet as she stopped before them and bent in a deep bow. But when she raised her head again, it was easy enough to see something in her eyes that had never been there before; an expression of sheer terror.

"Byakuya-sama," the woman said, her voice shaking with the strain of forced neutrality, "there is a messenger here for you. A messenger from the Spirit King."

* * *

O

* * *

Before you all begin screaming at me - yes, the 'several hours' will be revisited in great detail next week. However, I wanted to end this chapter on an appropriately dramatic and characteristic cliffie. (waves to Joyce)

Holla at me, readers, I don't know what you think if you don't tell me!


	12. Blood and Promises

A/N: For the record, I blame Kubo.

First, he breaks my brain with chapter 423, then goes on a two-week break, which my Muse - unbeknownst to me at the time - was intent on emulating. Sooooo... yeah. Onyx got back from her little 'vacation' early Wednesday morning. We spent most of the evening and half the night beating the chapter into shape for you guys, so I hope you enjoy it!

Also: Who wants a **kiriban**? True to my word, I'm holding to RDBH's review-kiriban - starting at review number 150 for Bonds of Honor. So if you didn't have a chance to grab one in the last story, here's your opportunity!

Credits: Midway through the chapter, Ichigo quotes Thomas Edison's theory on good fortune.

Translator's Notes:

Tu - Chinese unisex name meaning "chart, diagram, map," or Vietnamese unisex name meaning "star."

Warnings: Potential minor squickiness, which I can't elaborate on without surrendering the plot point. Just... hold off on the rotten fruit when you're done with the chapter, mmkay?

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 12: Blood and Promises

* * *

There were very few situations in which Kuchiki Byakuya lost his composure.

A threat to Renji, Rukia, or the honor of the Kuchiki Clan would result in a storm of cherry-blossom scented reiatsu cold enough to make even Hitsugaya pause, delivered with a cold and unfeeling stare that suggested a statue of marble rather than a being of flesh and blood.

The antics of Shihoin Yoroichi and, to a lesser extent, Kusajishi Yachiru, barely fazed him anymore - a slow blink, a sardonic comment, and he would continue on his way without the slightest indication of disturbance.

Even combating his Clan Council in their frequent arguments of precedence and propriety failed to do more than produce a dull annoyance in the man.

In fact, Renji had thought that the most effective means of cracking that blank mask might have been the application of Renji's own fingers and mouth (among other things) to Byakuya's body. A breath on the ear, a finger tracing the course of his spine, lips and teeth against that pale throat - all of those were guaranteed to leave the noble gasping for breath and utterly pliant in Renji's hands.

And as enjoyable as that was, it was not exactly the break in composure necessarily acceptable in public places.

However, Renji had just discovered a new means to making his noble partner drop his dispassionate mask - place a baby in his arms.

Byakuya looked down at the tiny form of Kurosaki Masaki, cradled awkwardly in his too-stiff arms, then shot Renji a glance that verged on desperate; wide-eyed, disbelieving, and ever-so-slightly frantic.

"Kurosaki," Byakuya snapped, his voice barely above a whisper in deference to the sleeping infant he held, "surely you do not expect me to -"

"Hold your niece? Yeah, I do. You know you're gonna wind up with babysitting duty now and again," Ichigo shot back, leaning back slightly to scrutinize Byakuya's hold. "Relax a little, you're not made out of wood."

Renji coughed.

Ichigo turned and threw a scathing glare over his shoulder, but softened it slightly when he saw the ease with which Renji was cradling a drowsing Kaien in one arm. "Just... do what Renji's doing, okay? He looks better at that than I am."

"Eh, pro'ly," Renji answered with a shrug. "Done it before, anyway. Kids in Inuzuri," he added, when Ichigo shot him a questioning look. "I go down every year, lookin' for potential Shinigami. Usually stop in on some 'a the ward-keepers, ask 'em about any promisin' kids they have. I've steered a few the way of th' Academy, so they keep an eye out for me."

"Oh," Ichigo answered vaguely - there really wasn't much to be said to that - and, turning back to Byakuya, sighed and set about correcting Byakuya's hold.

* * *

The next group admitted to the room was composed of three; a smirking Yoroichi with a slightly uneasy-looking Kisuke trailing along, both lead by Isshin, bright-eyed with nervous excitement and restrained from rushing in only by Unohana's steady gaze.

"Ichigo, I -"

"Dad." The simple, level word cut off any apologies or explanations Isshin would have made; quietly, Ichigo stepped forward and settled the blanket-wrapped form of his baby son into his father's arms. "Congratulations, you're a grandfather."

"I - you..." Blinking a few times, Isshin stared down at the baby he held, shifting his arms to cradle the tiny form. "Heh," he chuckled, struggling to regain some of his natural aplomb. "You do good work, son!"

"Yeah, Rukia helped," came the dry response. From her position on the bed, Rukia glowered at them both, probably contemplating how much damage she could do to their heads with a thrown pillow without injuring her son in the attempt.

"What did you name them, Ichigo?" Urahara asked from across the room, where he and Yoroichi were cooing delightedly over Ichigo's daughter. The Shihoin princess was already murmuring about how she would teach the little girl to be the fastest Shunpo master in the Seireitei, and how her Uncle Kisuke would always make sure she had the most wonderful toys...

"You two have Masaki," Ichigo told her, and Isshin jerked his head up in astonishment. "And Dad has Kaien."

For a long second, Isshin didn't speak at all, didn't even breathe, as his gaze stayed riveted on his son. "Kaien?" he echoed, a trembling note of disbelief touching his voice, and Ichigo nodded slowly, watching as his father's face slowly crumpled into a smile.

"Thank you, Ichigo," the man whispered, tears beginning to track down his face as he looked down at the new face of the child he had lost. "Thank you."

* * *

Isshin's eyes were still damp when Unohana opened the door for the next group, and Yoroichi and Urahara made quick escapes to make room for the incoming seven; Uryuu and Orihime, Chad and Tatsuki, with Ukitake and Kyouraku bringing up the rear. Kyouraku had a tight grip on Nanao's sleeve, and was casually tugging his Lieutenant along with a blithe disregard for her hissed protests.

Ukitake was quick to scoop Masaki into his arms, cooing delightedly and tickling her nose with a lock of his hair, causing a great deal of nose-scrunching and fist-waving on Masaki's part.

"Oh, it's been far too long since I've held a child," Ukitake chuckled, tickling her under the chin until she burbled happily. "Kuchiki, I expect you to bring both of them along when you return to work, understood?"

"You may come to regret that request, sir," Rukia answered dryly, as Ichigo handed Kaien off to a bemused Kyouraku. "But yes, understood."

"I may rethink the request, but I won't regret it," Ukitake countered. "There are far too few children born here these days, and children like these - well! Noble scions, powerful parents, blood of the -"

"Don't _say_, it, Jyuu!" Kyouraku interrupted, quickly handing Kaien off to Nanao as he swung towards the other Captain. She gave him a wide-eyed glance, somewhere between disbelief and genuine fear as the presence of the infant in her arms registered.

" - most powerful Shinigami in existence?" Jyuushiro finished, just as Nanao protested "Captain! Why did you -"

"He is your nephew, you know," Kyouraku reminded her over his shoulder, before turning back to a faintly smirking Ukitake. "Jyuushiro, you -"

"I have not survived this long by being incompetent, Shunsui," Ukitake reminded him delicately, "and mind your Lieutenant."

Kyouraku turned back to Nanao, and managed to take Kaien safely from her arms and catch her a split-second before she fainted.

* * *

When Zaraki turned up in the third hour, the spike in Ichigo's reiatsu sent half of the Fourth staggering until the substitute reined himself in, settling for merely glaring at the massive Captain.

"Zaraki. Did you want something?" Ichigo asked, his tone tersely level, and the big man snorted in response.

"Che. Here t' see your brats, ain't I?" came the irritable answer, and Ichigo stopped short, blinking in surprise. It hadn't occurred to him until now, but Zaraki, having cared for Yachiru since before the girl could walk, was the girl's father in everything but blood. Which meant that the people who best knew what Ichigo was in for with his new family were... Matsumoto and Zaraki.

While Ichigo was still reeling from that revelation, the massive Captain stepped into the room uninvited, peering down at the boy Ichigo held. "Tiny thing," he grunted thoughtfully, and lifted the child out of Ichigo's arms with startlingly gentle hands. Kaien squirmed indignantly at the assessment, finally flailing out with one hand and latching onto Zaraki's thumb. "Strong, though!" he added, clearly surprised, as the infant squeezed the roughly-calloused digit. "You may wind up bein' a credit to your daddy after all," he muttered, passing the child back to his astounded father.

Unohana, who had been carefully overseeing the exchange, leaned forward with a gentle smile and settling one pale hand on Zaraki's arm. He smirked, covering the delicate hand with his own heavy one.

"Yachiru'll be glad t' have playmates when those two're grown up a little," Zaraki grunted, and Ichigo nodded faintly, his mind still in a jumble, before it finally latched on to something that should have registered sooner.

"Where is Yachiru, anyway?" he asked after a nervous moment, shifting the weight of Kaien in his arms, and Zaraki huffed slightly.

"Down fer a nap," came the surprising response. "She decided that she wasn' seein' enough a' Feather-Face lately, an' challenged him t' a fight. Full shikai. She's sleepin' t' get some energy back."

"It did strike me that things were unusually quiet," Byakuya muttered from the corner, and Renji elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

" 'm almost afraid t' ask, sir, but how'd Yumi come outta it?" Renji asked, ignoring Byakuya's dirty look.

"He'll recover," came the short answer. "One 'a those medics put his arms straight for 'im, an' said th' bones'd heal in a day or so."

Well, that certainly explained why Shuuhei hadn't been in to see the children. And, for that matter, Ikkaku and Kira. If Yumichika was injured, he was no doubt keeping both his Captain and his lover hopping, and Kira would no doubt be at Hisagi's side...

Renji and Ichigo exchanged glances as Zaraki left, and Ichigo was forced to pass Kaien back to Rukia when both he and Renji dissolved into laughter.

* * *

It seemed like forever before the tide of well-wishers finally ebbed, leaving only Renji, Byakuya, Uryuu and Orihime within the birthing-room with the new parents. Chad and Tatsuki had returned to Karakura some time before, not wanting to leave it undefended, and Isshin had gone along with them, declaring quite loudly as he did so that he did not wish to 'abandon his darling daughters to the depths of misery by not gracing them with his presence.' Ichigo had smacked him on the head as he left.

"Oh, Ichigo-kun, Rukia-san, they're so beautiful!" Giggling, Orihime leaned forward to tickle Masaki's chin, cooing delightedly as the baby opened huge blue eyes to blink blearily at her before yawning hugely and drifting back to sleep. Both infants had been remarkably tolerant about being passed around like show-and-tell objects, something that had worried Ichigo initially - not only how the two would react, but the risk of having so many people handle them.

Unohana, however, had been in and out of the room the entire time, pausing occasionally to show inexperienced arms how to cradle the infants, but never objecting to the number of arms the infants were being passed through. Apparently, Shinigami infants didn't have the same frailties that human infants did?

Uryuu peered over his wife's shoulder at the tiny girl, comfortably asleep in Rukia's arms. Across the room, Renji leaned against the wall by the window, Kaien in his arms and Byakuya leaning quietly against his side.

"You're very fortunate, Ichigo," Uryuu murmured finally, resting his chin on Orihime's shoulder as they both regarded the tiny infant.

" 'Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning,' " the young Shinigami answered dryly, his gaze intent on his friends. "Which is why I need to ask you two something."

"Ask _us_ something?" Uryuu repeated, his tone skeptical. "What sort of question is it that you have in mind?"

"Less of a question and more of a request, actually," Ichigo answered, shifting his weight nervously. "Even without Aizen hanging over our heads, I've made a lot of enemies, and some day, I'm going to meet one that I can't beat. If that happens, I want to make sure my kids are taken care of, no matter what life they choose. I've already asked Byakuya and Renji to serve as their guardians here, within the Soul Society, but if they stay in the Living World... I want to ask you two to be their godparents."

"Wha - _us_?" Uryuu repeated, voice rising with incredulity. "Wouldn't Sado and Tatsuki be a better choice?"

"No," Ichigo answered levelly. "I've already discussed it with them, and they agree with my decision. I owe you two... everything, a thousand times over. Ishida, you're the one who first helped me realize the true strength of my power, with that stupid Hollow-killing contest of yours."

The memories flicked back, as easily as the pages of a photo album turned, _Hollow bait splintering under his fingers, disbelief slowly burning into cold fear, the first sight of a true Menos as it tore through the sky..._

"And Orihime, you've saved my life, both of our lives, more times than I can count," Ichigo added, smiling gently at the girl, who blushed and ducked her head. "You were the one who put Rukia and I back together every time our lives were hanging on by a thread. But most of all," he added, his voice dropping to a whisper colored with a dark thread of shame, "after everything you've seen of me, you two can still look me in the eye."

Ishida jerked, feeling Orihime tense against him. Of course, Sado had never seen the monster that Ichigo carried in his soul - he'd been below the dome, on the blood-fractured sands of Hueco Mundo with Renji and the others. Everyone in their group _knew_ what had transpired on that shattered stone, knew that Ichigo's Hollow had taken over and nearly swept him away, but there had only been three witnesses to it. One was Ulquiorra, now nothing more than ash and memory. The others...

His expression almost pleading, Ichigo spread his hands. "Uryuu. Orihime. Please."

Ishida blinked, slowly. The thought that Ichigo might ask this of them had never occurred to him; he had never given the matter much consideration at all. If he had, he would have dismissed the thought of being asked out of hand; Orihime's condition was still fragile, and he, Uryuu, was a _Quincy_, not a Shinigami, not a person who could teach these children about the world they belonged to...

Hesitant, he began to reply, wanting to ask Ichigo for more time to consider, more time to discuss it and just plain think, but he was cut off by Orihime, straightening up to meet Ichigo's eyes.

"Yes," she answered simply, startling Uryuu into silence. He twisted around, enough to gaze at the side of her face, searching her expression. Much to his surprise, those wide, silver-grey eyes held only calm determination, with a steadiness to them that he had not seen in years.

"Ishida?" Ichigo arched an eyebrow towards him, curious. "You okay with it?"

"Yes," Uryuu answered, surprising even himself when he realized that the answer was true. "We would be honored."

* * *

Night had already fallen by the time Byakuya and Renji said their goodbyes, and Rukia was long since asleep, curled at the edge of her bed with one hand resting on the edge of her children's cradle. Ichigo, clearly exhausted and just as clearly too exited to sleep, murmured quiet goodnights to them both before shutting the door behind them, leaving the new family alone at last.

Renji slung a careless arm over his own partner's shoulders, cheerfully ignoring Byakuya's glare, and the pair of them began the slow walk back to the Kuchiki manor, savoring the quiet night air around them. Their nights of peace were numbered now; particularly if twins shared their father's power and their mother's temperament, and both men were quietly determined to make the most of the peace they had.

Peace that was shattered moments after their arrival at the manor, when Riko ran to them with her face a mask of terror, telling them that a messenger from the Spirit King had come.

Byakuya nodded slightly, his blank expression not shifting in the slightest. "I understand," he answered simply. "Where has the messenger been escorted to?"

"The... the small reception chamber, Byakuya-sama," Riko answered, her fingers twisting, white-knuckled, in the skirt of her kimono as she spoke. "Ginrei-sama is attending him."

"Ginrei's here? I didn't know he was coming." His expression guileless, Renji peered down at the woman over Byakuya's shoulder, and blinked slightly at the two stares he received in response. "What?"

Riko stared at the redheaded Captain for a long moment, actually meeting his eyes as her curiosity overcame her decorum, before finally exhaling a slow, steady breath as she gathered the scattered threads of her usual calm.

Byakuya, for his part, wanted to do nothing more than stare at his partner in gape-mouthed astonishment, something that both his upbringing and his own sense of dignity prevented. He had expected Renji to question the presence of the messenger, to express some of the fear that was creeping cold tendrils through Byakuya's heart - not dismiss the matter without a word in favor of asking after Ginrei!

Until, that was, Riko bowed deeply to the two of them, pale beneath her makeup but utterly composed once again. "Thank you, Renji-sama," she said simply, and Renji smirked in response, looking as though he hadn't a care in the world. The expression didn't slip even after Riko turned away, and Byakuya wondered, briefly, if Renji was worried at all.

"_If you are honestly foolish enough to think he's not terrified, your wits are duller than the blunt end of a club,"_ muttered a sibilant voice in the back of Byakuya's consciousness; the snake half of Zabimaru. _"But if you thought for a second he didn't see you nabbing that butterfly, you must have assumed_ he _was duller than the blunt end of a club, and blind to boot. He saw that little bug before you did, and he knew exactly what it meant."_

Which likely also meant that Renji had anticipated the presence of the messenger, just as Byakuya himself had.

"_He did," _the deeper, calmer voice of the baboon assured him._ "But our Master is a good Master to all who stand behind him. He cares for their hurts and worries, and gives them the strength to hold their heads high, even when they would sooner fall to the ground and weep with terror."_

Once again composed, if only thanks to Renji's easy calm, Riko resumed her duties by escorting her masters in, back straight and her stride steady as she led them to the reception chamber where the messenger waited.

* * *

"Byakuya, Renji. How good of you to join us," Ginrei remarked dryly, as the two of them entered the room a moment later. The statement was tinged with mild but definite sarcasm, and Byakuya shot his grandfather a glance from the corner of his eye. When the old man simply stared straight ahead, for all appearances ignoring him utterly, Byakuya bit back a sigh and turned his attention to the man occupying the other side of the table.

Squad Zero. So many of the Shinigami, the new or the skeptical, thought it was nothing more than a myth. It was only when an officer reached the higher ranks - a fifth seat or above - that they were informed of the truth. The King's Protection Squad was very real, and chose its members from among the ranks of the most distinguished officers ever to grace the Gotei. Not all members of Squad Zero were former Captains - Ginrei's own great-uncle had been inducted into the prestigious division, centuries ago, when he was only a third-seat, but he had been confined to that rank simply because there were no positions open above it, save for the King's Squad.

"Kuchiki Byakuya," their guest - no mere messenger, but one of the elite guard - nodded, his face and thoughts hidden behind an opaque white veil. Only the narrowest slit in the fabric allowed a glimpse of his eyes, a brown dark enough to verge on black and slanted upwards at the corners. "I am Tu of the King's Guardians."

Byakuya nodded, sweeping his body forward in a fluid bow, deep enough to show the top of his head to the veiled man, before seating himself. It would not do to start these proceedings out with ill grace...

Momentarily worried, he cast half an eye behind him to his partner, only to find Renji bowing with all the grace of a born courtier. Silently, the younger Captain rose from his bow, neither surprised nor bothered by the guard's lack of response, and followed Byakuya's example in seating himself at the table.

* * *

It had been Ginrei himself who had guided Renji through the twisted maze of politics inherent in his new position with the Kuchiki Clan. _'Always remember,' the old man told him, 'you are now a weapon, a shield, and a spy. Remain still and silent when you are placed among those who do not know or respect you, and allow them to trip themselves on their own arrogance. Observe and learn all you can, and use the information you gather to protect Byakuya, serve your allies, and strike your enemies.'_

With that advice in mind, Renji settled himself quietly next to his partner and waited.

* * *

"Kuchiki Byakuya, you asked a boon of the Spirit King, that the two children born to Kurosaki Ichigo and your adoptive sister, Kuchiki Rukia, be allowed to remain with your Clan. Justify your demand."

Byakuya's eyebrow flicked upward ever-so-slightly at the terse phrasing. "I believed that my request was adequately explained in my initial message," he replied steadily, a delicate emphasis on the word 'request.' "The Kuchiki Clan has, of late, had a dearth of children born to it, and none since myself have shown the potential strength necessary to become notable Shinigami. As the Head of the Clan, I cannot in good conscience allow my family to fall into decrepitude when two promising heirs have been delivered to our hands."

"And you believe that the needs of your mere clan supersede the needs of the Royal Family themselves?" The guard's scorn was clear in his voice, his eyes narrowed as he glowered across the table. "Your arrogance is remarkable."

"It is arrogance to assume that the Spirit King would, in his infinite wisdom, make use of the resources presented to him?" Byakuya countered rapidly. "He has at his hands a viable heir, one already tested and proven, with a strength to exceed even the greatest warriors of the Seireitei. Kurosaki Ichigo is the true heir to the throne of the Spirit King, by virtue of both blood and power."

"Kurosaki Ichigo is not, nor will he ever be, recognized as the Heir to the Spirit King," Tu snapped back, anger burning cold in his eyes. "The demon that lurks within him is a form of madness, unacceptable in a ruler of this world!"

"Kurosaki's inner Hollow has been under his complete control for -"

"However long his control over the beast has endured is not the issue. Ten thousand years of control may be undone by a lost second. However," the man added, a dark tone of self-satisfaction coloring the edges of his voice as he locked eyes with Byakuya, "even a mad father may produce a viable heir."

The blow struck as it had intended; Byakuya paled until his face nearly matched the kenseikan in his hair, shocked at the low strike. Beside him, Renji nonchalantly shifted his weight, carefully laying a hand on Byakuya's knee beneath the table before turning to look the Royal Guard directly in the eye.

"Speaking about Byakuya's father to his face is an insult I am willing to kill you for," he said, every word clear and steady. The messenger blinked once, clearly startled, before finally turning his gaze and attention to the red-haired Captain.

For a long moment, there was only a ringing silence within the room, until Tu finally shook his head. "In an honorable duel? You would not defeat me, Abarai Renji."

"Are you sure about that?" Renji countered, his voice dropping as his eyes narrowed. "I'm a prodigy, after all. Zanpakutou-marked, second-fastest in the history of the Gotei to achieve Bankai, one of the youngest Captains in the records... and you're rubbin' me the wrong way."

Although Tu's eyebrows were hidden behind the veil he wore, it was easy enough to tell that he arched one, apparently amused by Renji's assessment. "Your strengths have been well-documented, Captain Abarai," he acknowledged after a moment. "Given a few more centuries of experience, it is entirely possible that one or both of you will receive an invitation to the Guards. The King himself has taken note of your strengths after your involvement in his grandson's battles. However," he added, eyes narrowing as he leaned across the table, his gaze intent on the pair before him, "both of you have many, many years ahead of you before you can think to challenge even me, let alone the King himself."

"I can only hope that is the case," Byakuya answered, his voice once again blandly smooth, as Renji shot Tu a look of contemptuous disgust that he must have copied from one of Byakuya's uncles. "Should the matter be pressed, however, I fear that we - likely along with Kurosaki himself - would be putting our skills to the test a great deal sooner than anticipated."

For perhaps the first time since he had entered the room, Tu's reaction was not calculated, not aimed and thrown like a weapon towards the men he viewed as his opponents. He jerked back, his eyes going wide with something that looked altogether like fear as he reached for the white hilt of his Zanpakutou. "You - you are declaring war upon the Spirit King?"

"Don' be an' idiot, Tu," Renji snorted. "We're not declarin' war, just..."

"Offering adequate warning of the potential repercussions to a single course of action," Byakuya completed smoothly, and waited patiently until the guard's hand drifted away from his blade.

"You overstep your boundaries, both of you," Tu snarled, his hands fisting on the table. "Kuchiki Rukia is not yours to claim by blood! The decree of her adoption is easily nullified by a Royal order -"

"I am afraid you are quite mistaken," Byakuya interjected calmly. "Rukia is as much a Kuchiki as I."

"While it may be binding within Seireitei, a decree of adoption does not -"

"You misunderstand," Byakuya interrupted, his voice chilling several degrees. "It is well-known among the circles of nobility that my father was disloyal to my mother. Did you never stop to consider why I, scion of the greatest of the Noble Houses, would seek a bride from among the poorest districts of Rukongai, when women of noble breeding were throwing themselves at my feet?"

The room went very still. Renji, frozen in disbelief, fought to keep his face neutral and his gaze on the Royal Guard across the table. Fortunately, any cracks in his blank expression went utterly unnoticed, as Tu was entirely too busy staring at Byakuya.

"I sought out Hisana deliberately," Byakuya continued, his face and voice expressionless. "The only means by which she would ever attain the life she deserved as the child of a noble father was by marriage to a nobleman - a marriage I provided. Her poor health offered a convenient excuse for why our relationship was never consummated. After her death, I sought out Rukia, under the excuse of honoring the last wish of my beloved wife, and offered her the opportunities her birthright grants. I can assure you," he concluded levelly, his gaze steady on that of the disbelieving guard, "Kuchiki Rukia _is_ my sister."

* * *

Tu fled only moments after that, returning to the Spirit King with word that the two potential heirs had been blood-claimed by the Kuchiki Clan, and stood behind those willing to fight for their protection.

Renji and Byakuya watched the man leave before silently nodding to Ginrei and departing the room as well, escaping the confines of the manor to walk down the graveled paths through the gardens. Side-by-side, they followed the moonlight-lit white stones down the sloping hill, until they finally stopped before a ritual water basin that Renji instantly recognized. It was here, to this isolated spot on the Kuchiki grounds, where he had come before his bonding ceremony to Byakuya, to undergo his ritual purification beneath the waterfall just beyond the curve of the hill. Kneeling automatically before the stone basin, he carefully rinsed his hands, then mouth, then rose and waited as Byakuya did the same. When the other man was done, they followed the last curve of the gravel path around the edge of the hillside and into the clearing before the crystalline waterfall.

Wordlessly, Byakuya settled himself crosslegged on the cool ground, and Renji followed suit, sitting down facing him, close enough for their knees to touch, before reaching forward to gather Byakuya's hands in his own.

"When, exactly, were you gonna tell me?" Renji asked quietly, his voice barely audible over the constant rush of the water behind them. For a long moment, Byakuya did not respond, merely stared at their linked hands.

When he finally raised his head, though, Renji took in his expression in a blink - the amusement creasing the corners of Byakuya's eyes, the faintly smug curl to the delicate mouth.

"You son of a bitch!" Renji exclaimed, his shout dimmed to a strained whisper. "You were _bluffing_ him?"

"Indeed," Byakuya answered dryly, a very faint breath of laughter escaping on his words. "While my deception will be realized at some point, I have at least managed to buy us time to formulate a more effective solution."

"You..." shaking his head, Renji could only stare at his partner in amazement. "You're insane, y' know that, right? Y' really think it's wise, lyin' t' _him_?"

"Undoubtedly not," Byakuya answered calmly, although his hands trembled within Renji's grasp. "As I said, it was merely a delay tactic. Blood relatives have a far greater claim on children than those merely decree-bound."

"So Rukia's really not your blood-sister?" Renji asked, some of the tension flowing out of his shoulders and leaving a numb weakness behind.

"There is certainly no evidence to suggest that theory, no." Byakuya answered, his smirk still lingering. "However, her appearance is alike enough to those who share Kuchiki blood that it will not be an easy theory to disprove, either."

* * *

Left alone in the reception room, Kuchiki Ginrei gazed quietly into the flame of the lamp burning on the table, and let himself fall back into his memories.

The night his son-in-law's betrayal had been discovered, Ginrei himself had entered the young man's rooms, intent on purging them of any trace of the traitorous man's presence. It would, he reasoned, ease the pain for his daughter and her young son, not to have evidence of the man to trigger memories.

He had disassembled the minimal furniture, checking every inch of it for possible traps, gone through every scrap of paper in the desk and bookshelf, and eventually ordered anything written by the younger man to be burned.

Among the papers fed to the blaze was a single, rough-made sheet of parchment bearing an untutored hand - not his son-in-law's, certainly, but rather a missive addressed to him, from a man whose name Ginrei recognized - a known criminal and murderer-for-hire.

'_Your mistress in Rukongai has been eliminated. Of her two children, there were no sign.'_

Sighing to himself, Ginrei leaned forward and blew out the lamp.

* * *

O

* * *

Please withhold the rotten vegetables in favor of a review!


	13. Vows and Agony

Author's Pointless Ramble: You know that remote control from the Adam Sandler movie? The one that has a pause feature for real life? ...yeah, I need one of those. If anyone has an extra handy, I wouldn't object to a late birthday/early Christmas present. I'll give you free one-shots for, like, the rest of forever if you send me one... 'cuz I'll actually have time to write them...

Mind you, if you don't have a magic remote control lying around and want a free one-shot anyway, just make sure you grab my upcoming 150 **Kiriban**! It's a tradition I'm continuing from RDBH, because I enjoyed the requests I got so much. If you haven't taken the time yet, check out the first three: the first one is Whitecloud1's _A Matter of Control_, archived independently, while SymphonyofSilence's _What Reapers Sew_ and Sakana-san's _From Flowers to Frost_ are actually part of the Duty and Honor series canon, and are archived in the Director's Cut.

Actual A/N: Because this question is inevitably asked whenever the phrase 'Kuchiki heir' comes up in the story, I will state it, once again: NO, this will not be mpreg. While I have nothing particularly against mpreg, it is not my favorite kink, and I don't think I could write it with a straight face. The issue of a Kuchiki heir will be resolved by the end of the story, and I can safely assure you that the resolution will not feature Byakuya or Renji becoming pregnant. For those of you who _do_ wish to read about Byakuya and/or Renji becoming pregnant - I believe SpunkyOne has the market cornered on ByaRen mpreg fictions, by all means check her stories out. She updates a lot faster than I do.

Warnings: You're going to hate me for this chapter. Hells, *I* hate me for this chapter, and I know how everything turns out! Just please withhold rotten produce - you're going to want it later on anyway, -_-U.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 13: Vows and Agony

* * *

"Remind me again why I'm doing this?"

"You want Kin properly prepared for the Academy, don't you?" Rangiku's pleading pout was utterly belied by the sparkle of smug triumph in her eyes. Lounging back in her chair, she batted her eyelashes at her Captain in a manner that had brought opponents and admirers to their knees for decades.

Hitsugaya merely glowered.

Sighing, Matsumoto sat forward again, folding her hands on her desk and meeting his eyes squarely. "The truth is, Captain, if _I_ took her shopping, my biggest worry would be getting her out of those drab old yukata she's so fond of and into something attractive!"

Somewhat against his will, Hitsugaya half-turned to glance at the girl, standing silently near the door of the office, politely gazing at the opposite corner of the ceiling and pretending that she couldn't hear every word they were saying. True, her yukata was quite plain - a very pale all-over blue with faint wave patterns printed on it in a blue barely half a shade darker - but Kin, unlike her mother, did not prefer to draw attention to herself.

"You can actually stay on task," Rangiku continued cheerfully, "and worry about all the boring, necessary stuff, and I'll deal with her wardrobe later on."

"One word, Ran," interrupted a weary voice from the office couch, just as Hitsugaya was opening his mouth to challenge Rangiku's dismissal of school supplies as 'boring necessary stuff,' and a tired-looking Hisagi sat up enough to glance at the woman over the back of the sofa. "Uniforms."

"Oh, pish on uniforms. Go back to sleep, Hisagi," came the airy reply, and Hitsugaya and Shuuhei exchanged disbelieving glances.

The Captain of the Ninth had appeared at the doorway of the office only minutes after breakfast that morning, his eyes dark-circled and his face lined with exhaustion, and half-begged Hitsugaya to borrow his couch for a few hours worth of nap. As it had been far too early for Rangiku to be in the office, Hitsugaya had - not _quite_ gleefully - invited the man in.

Needless to say, Rangiku had been quite miffed when she'd appeared an hour later to find 'her' couch already occupied.

A few rather pointed questions had drawn the story from Hisagi in short order, not that there was much to tell - Yumichika was still laid up after his duel with Yachiru, and the man was driving everyone in proximity to him mad with his demands. Ikkaku had been taking the brunt of it, and Shuuhei, as Yumi's Captain, was getting a fair bit dumped on himself as well.

In fact, Yumichika was running the pair of them so ragged that Zaraki had been heard muttering something to himself about injuring the man on a regular basis, in order to test the mettle of new recruits.

It would probably go down as the only time in history Madarame Ikkaku had argued with his Captain; quite certainly it was the only time someone had dared call the Kenpachi a 'gods-damned idiot' to his face.

Ikkaku had been fairly fortunate to escape with a few reiatsu burns and a broken leg, but the fact that he was now prevented from waiting on Yumichika hand and foot had left the injured Lieutenant rather fed up.

When a rather bewildered Hitsugaya had finally collected himself enough to ask - over Matsumoto's hysterical laughter - why Hisagi hadn't gone to the Third to catch up on his sleep, the exasperated reply had been 'because that's the _first_ place he'd send somebody to look!'

"Uniforms aren't something to pish at," Hisagi answered. Inwardly, Hitsugaya applauded the man for being able to say that with a straight face; he was having trouble maintaining his composure just hearing it!

"The uniforms are boring! White and red and _blah_," Matsumoto grumbled, waggling a sake cup at Hisagi in lieu of a chastising finger. "It's my maternal duty to ensure she has at least one outfit that doesn't make her look like an old bag!"

Shuuhei coughed to stifle a snort, and Hitsugaya glanced at Kin again. She hadn't moved, still staring at the ceiling as though it held the key to the universe, but he could see the corners of her mouth twitching upwards from halfway across the room.

"She looks fine, Ran," Hisagi sighed, and Matsumoto scowled at him and began expounding on color palettes. Sighing faintly, Hitsugaya signed off on the last of his paperwork before slipping out from behind his desk under the cover of the mostly one-sided bickering - _'Teal? Are you colorblind?'_ and making his way across the office to Kin.

"Knowing your mother, she hasn't asked your opinion on your wardrobe," he muttered, and the girl shook her head faintly in response, still fighting down the smile threatening at the corners of her mouth.

"As long as it's not pink," came the laughingly whispered reply.

Hitsugaya glanced behind them as the pair slipped out the door, his eyes catching the flash of pink from the scarf wrapped around the elder Matsumoto's shoulders, and had to bite back a snicker as he shut the door behind them.

* * *

"Thank you. Please have them packaged and shipped to the Tenth Division Headquarters?"

The young woman at the counter nodded cheerfully, sweeping the purchases off to be wrapped, and Hitsugaya left the store with Kin hurrying quietly in his wake. Despite the girl's reiatsu control - which was some of the best he'd ever seen on a relatively untaught potential Shinigami - he could feel the vague upset in her energy. Without breaking stride, he glanced back over his shoulder at her, taking in her quietly closed features.

"What?" he demanded gruffly, and she twitched sharply, not quite jumping.

"Sir?"

"You're disturbed," he answered levelly, stopping and stepping to the side of the narrow street when it became evident that attempting to walk forwards and talk backwards simultaneously would probably not be beneficial to his health or that of passing pedestrians. "Why?"

For a long moment, the only response he got was Kin locking her reiatsu down until she almost vanished from his senses. When he finally fixed a glare on her - the Glare that could bring even Kin's wayward mother to heel - she shifted awkwardly for a moment before finally responding.

"I feel... guilty, sir. As though I'm taking advantage of you, when you buy all of those things."

Hitsugaya snorted. Although the Academy provided the few textbooks that were required for their courses, it was up to the students - or their sponsors - to supply essentially everything else. The store they had just left, a writing-supplies store, had a fine portion of Hitsugaya's last paycheck in hand, thanks to the brushes, ink sticks, grinding stones, and towering stack of blank, leather-bound journals he'd purchased for Kin. The store before that was busy shipping a new clothes-chest back to the Tenth Division, where Matsumoto would no doubt bribe Renji to carve Kin's name into it. There were still a couple of stops to go, and Kin had been blanching at the prices of her supplies from the first moment.

"You're forgetting one very important detail," Hitsugaya answered, and Kin's uneasy gaze flicked up to meet his, pale-blue eyes wide with worry. "I am your sponsor. Meaning, I voluntarily elected to take on the costs of your schooling. And yes, supplies are part of that cost!" he added, seeing her open her mouth to object.

After a long silence, Kin offered, very quietly, "Rei-obaa-san made it very clear that our duties were to be completed if we wished to eat. I can do nothing for you or your Division, and yet -"

"That's not actually true," Hitsugaya interrupted. "Having you at the barracks with her makes your mother happy. When she's happy, she drinks less and works more, meaning _I _have to pick up less. So in effect, your very presence is easing my workload."

"...oh," came the slow response, and he had to bite back a faint smile, watching the understanding dawn on her pale face.

"Feel better now?" he smirked, and received a half-smile in return.

"Yes, sir. But... may I ask you something?"

An arched brow encouraged her to proceed, and she did so, hesitantly. "Would you have... if I weren't... if I was not your Lieutenant's daughter, would you still have sponsored me?"

Weighing his answer for a moment, Hitsugaya finally motioned to Kin and began walking again, both of them skirting the edge of the bustling pedestrian street. Seireitei's shopping district was crowded today; a good number of the people hurrying along the stone-paved avenue were probably here on errands like Hitsugaya and Kin's, gathering supplies for the beginning of the Academy year.

"The truth is," he began, as the pair of them threaded their way through the throngs of people with an ease that seemed born into all Rukongai brats, "I began filling out sponsorship papers for you before I even knew your name, or your relationship to Matsumoto."

Only silence from beside him, but he could sense the bewildered startlement that slipped through her tight control. A little smugly, he continued. "I followed your mother out to Rukongai one night, and watched one of your training sessions. From the minute I realized that Matsumoto was teaching you the Shinigami Arts, I resolved to see you through the Academy. It wasn't until I confronted her about you the next day that I learned who you actually were."

He paused long enough to let a chattering clump of women pass, then glanced back to Kin, who was clearly weighing the new information in her mind.

"I had my suspicions from the beginning, of course. I know both your parents quite well, and physically, you are very much their child."

The flash of emotion, carried on the thin waves of reiatsu that escaped her control, was gone again so swiftly that for a moment, he almost doubted he'd felt it at all. One glance back at her face, however, told him without question that he had not been imagining what he'd felt; a lightning-brief snap of the burning, bitter hatred Kin held for her father.

Catching his gaze, the girl flushed dully, ducking her head. "I apologize, sir. My control slipped."

"So I noticed," Hitsugaya returned, his eyes narrowing as he turned to glare at the girl. "Your father is a good man, Kin. You shouldn't discard him out of hand."

"A good -" Disbelief written across her features, Kin's head snapped up, staring fully at Hitsugaya before that blistering anger seethed back to the surface. "A good man? He's a murderer and a traitor! He turned his back on the Soul Society and threw away everything he should have given his life to protect!"

Staring silently at the girl before him, thin and pale in an eerie reflection of her father's blood, Hitsugaya could only think back to the former Captain, pleading for Toushirou to defend Rangiku and Kin; Kin, the daughter he would never know, the daughter who hated him and everything he stood for, because Gin had been forced to give up his life and freedom to keep those he cared for safe.

Wordlessly, Hitsugaya turned away and resumed walking, listening to the sound of her hesitant footsteps behind him.

* * *

"And he _believed_ you?" Ichigo asked, incredulous, before his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "You know, if that were true, it would actually explain a lot."

"Please, do not think any farther on the subject," Byakuya grimaced, picking up the teapot to refresh the cups of his two companions.

"Why does it upset you, anyway?" Ichigo shot at the noble, automatically holding his cup steady for the tea to be poured. "I thought incest was a fairly common practice among noble houses."

"Simply because a practice is accepted does not make it correct," came the smooth retort, as Byakuya turned away from Ichigo, a faint frown on his face as he topped off the cup in his partner's hand.

"Unfortunately, Soul Society doesn't have anything like your DNA tests t' prove or disprove it," Renji sighed, taking a careful sip from his cup. The usually vibrant Captain had been oddly quiet ever since Ichigo joined them, and was currently frowning in the general direction of Byakuya's private koi pond.

The three men were clustered on the veranda outside of Byakuya and Renji's rooms, the door behind them left open. The excuse was to let fresh air flow through the rooms; the greater truth was to prevent any over-eager ears from pressing themselves against the door in an attempt to overhear the quiet discussion.

"In the end, the answer is immaterial," Byakuya said firmly, cutting Ichigo off before the younger man could reply. "I consider Rukia to be my sister in all manners. The contents of her blood will do nothing to change that opinion. The fact remains, however," he added, turning back to fix Ichigo with a cool stare, "that she is your wife, and the two children she has borne are unquestionably yours. Your grandfather has already stated his intentions to remove them from your custody. The question now becomes how you intend to proceed with this threat against their safety."

"I don't have any objections to my kids being declared Heirs," Ichigo answered absently, the rim of the teacup resting against his bottom lip and his eyes unfocused, clearly deep in thought.

The sheer shock of hearing that statement froze the other two men for a split-second. Everything was silent for the space of half a breath, before Renji and Byakuya both erupted; Renji with a shout, Byakuya with a hiss, their voices mingling and carrying over one another as they set into the other man.

" - would allow them to be torn from the family who -"

" - how fucking devastated Rukia would be if -"

" - necessity of their strength in order to preserve -"

" - just up and took them away from her -"

"_Would you both shut up and let me finish?_" Ichigo roared, startling both men back to silence. After a moment of frozen stillness, the pair settled back, both eyeing him narrowly, and Ichigo glowered right back before continuing.

"When I say I have no objection," he growled, "it's on the assumption that my children will be allowed to make the decision themselves, as adults, when they know exactly what they're getting themselves into, not if they're hauled off to his dimension before they're old enough to see straight."

"An' you honestly think that _he's_ just gonna wait around and let 'em decide on their own time?" Renji demanded, disbelief raising his voice almost a full octave. Byakuya winced slightly - Renji was regrettably close to his ear - but nodded faintly in agreement with his partner's sentiment.

"I don't plan on giving him a choice in the matter," Ichigo retorted, taking a careful sip of his tea and scowling. The expression was likely directed at the Spirit King rather than the beverage, and Byakuya elected against taking it as an offense to his tea. "Unohana said that they'll age like humans until they're mature, then taper off to age like Shinigami. They'll be adults in twenty years. That's nothing for an immortal like him, he can wait until they've grown."

"And if he does not?" Byakuya countered, eyebrows arching. "He is not a being noted for his understanding or compassion. How will you keep your family secure should he ignore your request?"

"Simple enough," Ichigo shrugged, draining his cup and setting it aside, delicate porcelain making a faint _chink_ against the lacquered tray. "Dad and Urahara were able to hide Mom for years without him finding her; if necessary, they can do the same thing for Rukia and the twins."

"Only Rukia and the twins?" Renji repeated, his eyes narrowing. "What about you?"

"If it comes down to Rukia fleeing," Ichigo answered softly, his gaze falling to the polished floorboards beneath his knees, "I'll have no choice but to stay here and draw the attention of his guards while they escape. I should be able to buy them enough time to get to the Living World and hiding."

"By throwing yourself against the Guards? Are you _insane_?" Renji hissed, disbelieving, and Ichigo merely shook his head, not lifting his eyes.

"Even you, Kurosaki, would not survive in an all-out battle against his forces," Byakuya interrupted, his voice quiet, and received only a halfhearted nod in response.

"I know," came the barely-murmured reply. "I've known that from the minute I realized he wanted to take my kids. If it comes down to that - to me needing to fight to give them cover to escape - I know I won't walk away. Why do you think I was so careful to choose their godparents?"

The words hit Renji like a blade to the heart. Ichigo, the proudest, most defiant warrior he'd ever known, so calmly discussing throwing away his own life for the sake of his wife and children, the very things that he should have been fighting to live for. Before he could form a response, though, Byakuya shifted, leaning forward to catch the young Visored's attention.

"Would you sentence your children to the same broken childhood that we have both endured?" the noble demanded quietly, his hands beginning to tremble as he spoke, jarring the tea remaining in his cup. "Would you force them to grow up in a shattered family, forever wondering if they were to shoulder the blame for their parent's death?"

Startled, Ichigo jerked his head up to stare at the noble, any retort he might have made dying on his lips as he saw the shadows haunting the depths of Byakuya's eyes. Wordlessly, Renji rose from his cushion and moved to kneel on the floor beside Byakuya's own, close enough that he could rest his chin on the other's narrow shoulder.

When Byakuya leaned against him, his shoulder pressing into Renji's chest, the redhead simply wrapped his arms around his partner, offering him all the support he could.

Ichigo glanced somberly between the pair, shaking his head slightly. "That's the worst-case scenario. I'm hoping it doesn't come down to that, but it needs to be planned for. I spoke to Urahara when we were at the Fourth earlier, and he's agreed to begin preparing gigai for them."

"You've been puttin' some thought into this, haven't you?" Renji sighed, gently resting his head against Byakuya's when the noble tensed, frowning at a sudden realization.

"Like I said, I've made my share of enemies," Ichigo answered levelly. "Even before I knew my grandfather was after them, I knew I never wanted to be in the position Gin's in now, worrying about my kids' safety because of people trying to get to me. And what's with that look?" he added, glowering back at Byakuya.

The noble's frown deepened slightly as he shifted forward, drawing himself out of Renji's reassuring grasp. "You were planning from the beginning to remove the children from the reach of the Clan," Byakuya said, his voice level and deadly soft.

For the space of a heartbeat, the three of them sat in silence, before Ichigo's strained temper finally overtook him, and the young man snapped.

"Of course I was planning on it! Dammit, Byakuya, I've done the whole damned 'child-of-destiny' thing, and it's a pain in the ass! I am not going to make my children live with the same sort of expectations hanging over their head that I had! I'll see that they're given the education and the training, yes, but they will be allowed to make their own choices about what they want to do with their lives! If they want to go on to become the heirs to the Throne or the Kuchiki Clan, I'll be happy for them, but if they want to join the Fourth Division and become fucking _street sweepers_, it will be their choice and I will stand behind them no matter what! The point is, it will be their decision! I will not allow them to be dragged down some path against their will simply because someone else wants control of their lives! So if you're so damn worried about having a blood heir for the Clan, take on a damned mistress and breed one yourself!"

White-faced, Byakuya jerked back as though he'd been slapped, fury blazing in his eyes like a sudden storm. "How _dare_ you -"

"Don't."

The sharp, simple word cut between Ichigo's boiling rage and Byakuya's cold fury. Both startled silent, the pair of them turned as one to look at Renji, who had shifted himself to be equidistant between the two men.

"Byakuya, Ichigo's got a point," Renji said simply, holding up a hand when the incensed noble opened his mouth to argue. "Neither of us has t' like it, but he's got a point. And Ichigo," turning towards the Visored, Renji leveled a gaze on the younger man that had Ichigo jerking backwards, "if you compare Byakuya to Aizen again, I'm gonna put your guts on the floor, and I don't care if you are my brother-in-law. Got it?"

Ichigo nodded wordlessly.

"Good," Renji said simply, and scooted himself back to Byakuya's side. "What'd Rukia have to say about these plans of yours, Ichigo?"

"She... uh," blinking rapidly, Ichigo stumbled quickly through his disordered thoughts. "She doesn't know. I didn't plan on discussing it with her until I needed to."

Tattooed eyebrows arched in disbelief. "You really think you're gonna keep this from her? How stupid _are_ you? This is _Rukia_ you're talking about - she ain't gonna be happy when she finds out you've been lyin' to her."

The answer, when it came, was surprisingly level considering it was delivered through gritted teeth. "I began making the plans without her knowledge, so there was going to be hell to pay regardless of when she found out. Right now, I'd rather she keep her attention on the kids, rather than worrying about what either of our families were planning. Is that answer _satisfactory_, Abarai-sama?"

"Stop bein' a dick, Ichigo," Renji retorted, quite unbothered, and Ichigo was midway through surging to his feet with the probable intention of punching Renji in the face when Zangetsu's energy pulsed.

Dropping back onto his pillow, Ichigo shook his head slightly before assuming the slightly unfocused gaze characteristic of someone listening to - or perhaps being dictated to by - their Zanpakutou.

Ichigo reemerged after a few seconds, looking ruffled. "I have to go," he said shortly, shoving himself to his feet again and shaking out his hakama. "Rukia needs me."

"Sure. Tell 'er we said 'hi'," Renji said mildly, and received a snort in return as Ichigo walked out.

* * *

"Arrogance," Byakuya hissed, seething, as he restacked the tea set, his hands shaking so badly that Renji finally stood up and plucked the delicate cups from his partner's fingers, before the priceless porcelain was dropped and shattered. "Appalling arrogance."

Which was, Renji reflected, a rather ironic criticism coming from Byakuya, but he refrained from pointing that out. Instead, he settled for simply placing the tea-tray back inside the door before saying softly, "He is right, you know."

Byakuya's eyes flashed, stormcloud-gray and furious as he spun on Renji. "You are siding with him? You believe I should surrender the last remaining hope of the Kuchiki house to Kurosaki's philistine sentiments?"

Renji grimaced. "Actually, I meant he had a point when he suggested..." damn it, this conversation was not going to go well. He could feel it in his bones. "...when he suggested that you take on a mistress an' get your own child."

Byakuya's face paled further, if that were possible, and Renji hastily pushed forward, before the noble could reply. "I'm not suggesting that we break our union! I'm not givin' you up, you should know that!"

"Of course not," came the coldly bitter reply. "You are merely suggesting that I betray you, lie with a woman I have no interest in and sire a child on her, all for the sake of allowing Kurosaki to indulge his proletarian whims?"

Renji bit his tongue to keep himself from arguing that - Byakuya was furious with Ichigo right now, and trying to defend the boy or his decisions would not help matters. "This has nothing to do with Ichigo, and you know it. First off, you're the Head of the Clan, an' that's supposed to be a hereditary position. It should be someone of your blood named heir, Byakuya, you know that! An' I'm not sayin' a damn thing 'bout you betrayin' me, I've known from the start that you've got a duty t' your family, an' I accepted before we were ever bound that y' might have t' get an heir like the Council's been demanding! So if y' do take on a mistress, it'd be with my full knowledge an' permission, which means that you _ain't fuckin' betrayin' me!" _

The last words came at a near-shout, wisps of reiatsu beginning to snake around Renji's form as they escaped his control. Byakuya, for his part, took a sharp step forward, his jaw set and his eyes blazing.

"What neither the Council nor, apparently, you, seem to grasp," he hissed, mouth twisting with anger as he spat the words, "is the fact that I do not desire to get a child of my own upon any woman, regardless of what I am expected or ordered to do. I have never wished to be a parent, regardless of the necessity of a blood heir. My own father was gracious enough to rob me of any delusions of my own ability to raise children -"

"Oh, fer the love a' fuck," Renji muttered suddenly, his eyes widening in a sudden epiphany before he began shaking his head in disbelief. "That explains it..."

"Explains what, precisely?" Byakuya shot back, frost rimming the words, and Renji looked back to him with an expression that almost bordered on pity.

"Y' don' see it, do you?" the redhead sighed. "Hones'ly, Byakuya, look at th' lovers you've taken on over your life. Ukitake, Hisana, me? Y' see a trend there?"

"I do not have the faintest idea what you are talking about."

"No, I s'pose y' don't," Renji sighed again, shaking his head. "Think abou' it. Two men an' an infertile woman?"

He could see the exact moment the understanding sunk into the noble's mind - the sharply-narrowed eyes snapped wide, pale lips parting in a startled gasp, long-fingered hands clenching into fists that did nothing to stop their tremors.

"Your entire life," Renji said, reigning in his accent and his emotions with difficulty, despite the nausea twisting his stomach, "you've been choosin' lovers that won't risk givin' you a child. The Council started pressurin' you, so you picked a safe alternative, knowin' they can't force you to take a mistress when you're formally bound to a Consort."

"Renji," Byakuya whispered, his ever-calm voice cracking at the edges, "you cannot think that I chose you as a... a mere scapegoat!"

"How am I s'posed to know differently, Byakuya?" Renji countered with a bitter, mirthless laugh. "Th' entire time we've been together, you've never once told me you loved me."

* * *

The words were so small, so painfully simple, and yet, Byakuya had not spoken them in over two centuries. Not to Ukitake, who had been his Shudo master and was still the closest thing to a kind father he'd ever known. Not to Hisana, to whom he'd given his heart. Not to Rukia, whom he treasured as a sister in every respect.

Not to Renji, the other half of his very soul.

And when he tried, desperate and horrified, to bring the words to his lips, to reassure the man before him and wipe away the bare agony in those dark eyes, the memories tore across his mind, lighting-brief flashes of waterlogged silk and numb horror and the servant's screams...

Bile rose in his stomach as the memories, so long repressed, flooded back into him. Turning away, Byakuya took two staggering steps, regained his balance, and fled, heedless of Renji crying out his name.

* * *

"Dammit - dammit! Byakuya! I didn't mean - _Byakuya_!" Feeling sickened, Renji reached out for the man he loved as Byakuya stumbled, his face going shock-white as one thin, shaking hand clenched over his mouth, seconds before he made a leap into Flashstep so fast Renji could not follow him.

Everyone in Seireitei knew the names of the Shunpo masters. They spoke in hushed whispers of Yoroichi, the Goddess of Flash, laughed about Kyouraku's incredible if sake-fueled speed, how Hitsugaya moved faster than the winter winds and Ichigo faster than the heat of flame.

The truth was, aside from Yoroichi, nobody in the Soul Society could truly match Kuchiki Byakuya's speed. Even as Renji leaped after him, stomach clenching in terror at the sheer _pain_ he had seen on Byakuya's face, he could feel the other man's reiatsu retreating at a rate that baffled the mind.

And then it vanished behind the roaring flare of a Senkaimon, before that too disappeared.

Numb, Renji staggered to a stop, staring listlessly at the ground beneath his feet as a wave of exhaustion slammed over him, a result of driving himself too hard and too fast, trying to match the speeds of a man who moved faster than he could ever hope to.

The dusty grass of Sokyouku Hill rustled under his feet as he moved. From the outer edges of the city clear to the centerpoint in a matter of seconds...

A wave of grayness washed over his vision, and Renji staggered sideways, falling to his knees as the overexertion caught up to him. "Dammit," he whispered again, fighting to brace his hands against the dry ground. "Byakuya... I didn't mean to hurt you... Byakuya... _Dammit, Byakuya! I LOVE YOU!_"

And then, all he saw was the ground rushing up to meet him.

* * *

He woke up, an hour later in his bed at the Fifth Division, altogether too conscious of Ichigo snoring quietly on the couch in the next room. A fast flicker of his senses told him what his heart already knew - Byakuya had not returned to Seireitei.

Rolling over, Renji pulled the blankets to his ear and stared blankly at the wall, ignoring the dull burn behind his eyes. Sleep would not find him again tonight.

* * *

Hours later, in the Living World, a single shadow dropped from among the hundreds like it that lined the city street and flickered casually along the side of the building until it reached an open window. Dropping in, the shadow slipped soundlessly across the floor, skirting the faint glow cast by the cloud-filtered moonlight.

It paused, finally, when it reached the sole occupant of the room, taking a moment to stare at the flawless seiza, the blankly composed features and anguished eyes, before dropping silently down to sit beside him.

"He loves you, you know," Yoroichi said without preamble, and Byakuya nodded woodenly, his face unchanging.

"Most of Seireitei knows now, actually, even if they were to stupid to realize it before. He screamed it from the top of Sokyouku Hill, and you know what kind of lungs he has on him," she added musingly. "I'm sure Kisuke has it on video if you want a recording..." Byakuya's only response was a long, slow blink, due more to his aching eyes than anything Yoroichi was telling him.

"Bya-bo, don't do this," the Shihoin princess growled, her fists clenching. "Renji loves you with everything he has, you know that! Don't turn your back on that, on him! He's the best thing that's happened to you in -"

"Yoroichi." The low, weary exhalation of her name stopped her in mid-rant, shocked by the pain she could hear in his voice. "Please, leave."

"Promise me you'll go back to him," she whispered, fierce and desperate, but only continued to stare at the blank wall before him, his reiatsu so tightly bound away that beyond her eyes, she had no sense that he existed. "Byakuya, _promise_! You _need_ him! I know you, Byakuya, and I know full well he's what's been putting you back together over these past years!"

"Yoroichi," he repeated, his voice still horribly blank and empty, "please. Leave."

She stared at him a moment longer, her voice caught behind the painful lump in her throat, before she silently rose and left.

* * *

The first rays of dawning light were slanting through the open door of the Rukongai hovel, warming the floorboards beneath Tsutomu's forehead as he paid obeisance to his master. Even the sunlight, though, could not warm the boards enough to match the near-feverish flush of Tsutomu's skin, brought on by the excitement that coursed through his body, leaving him nearly trembling in its wake.

"Well?" Kuchiki Masa said coolly, his cold gray eyes disdainful as they rested upon the back of Tsutomu's dark head. "What news do you bring?"

"I bring news from the Kuchiki House, Masa-sama," Tsutomu replied, fighting to keep his voice from quivering with excitement. "Kuchiki Byakuya has fled the Seireitei after an argument with his pet whore, leaving the estate and his Division in chaos."

"I see," Masa nodded, the faintest hint of a smile curling his mouth. "Tell me, how has the whore Abarai reacted to my dear nephew's disappearance?"

Tsutomu felt his lips curl in disgust, and pressed his forehead harder against the rough-polished wood to control his expression. "After chasing your noble blood across half of Seireitei, Masa-sama, he proceeded to stand on Sokyouku Hill and shriek a declaration of love before collapsing. The ryoka Captain and the Lieutenant of the Fifth then appeared and returned him to his Division quarters, but he went back to the manor this morning."

"Excellent," purred Masa, and Tsutomu was so astonished by the grim delight in his Master's voice that he raised his head, meeting the other man's eyes in an act that could be construed as deadly defiance. Much to his surprise, though, Masa beckoned him to rise, and Tsutomu hesitantly shifted to a warrior's seiza, casting his eyes properly downward again.

"With Byakuya gone from the manor and an argument still in the air between them, this is a perfect time to act against my foolish nephew and his little pet whore," Masa smiled, drawing a dagger from his belt. Heavily bejeweled, the ceremonial piece had the Kuchiki crest engraved directly on the steel of the blade.

"Take this," Masa ordered, sheathing the magnificent blade and placing it on the floor before him, so that Tsutomu need not defile his Master by taking it directly from his hands. "Return to the Kuchiki manor in the dress of their servants. And use that dagger... to kill Abarai Renji."


	14. Fear and Memory

A/N: Another week, another delay. (beats head soundly against wall) Again, no rotten produce please. If I drown in tomato-sludge you will never see the next chapter.

Also, keep those reviews coming! There's thirty-three to go before we hit the first Kiriban for Bonds of Honor, and I'm excited to see what you guys have in store for me!

Translator's Notes:

hebi - snake

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 14: Fear and Memory

* * *

The gravestone was rough under Byakuya's fingers, strangely so, as though weather and time had abused this particular piece of carved granite more than the others that surround it. Frowning, he traced his fingers slowly along the name carved into the gray surface, feeling the worn edges of the characters, where other, more familiar fingers had traced it many times before. His hands were bare - he had left his tekkou and haori behind, not wanting their extra weight upon him. He was not a Captain today, not now. And right now, he reflected wearily, as his sleeves pulled back enough to expose the silver-white scars tracing the insides of his wrists, he did not care to hide his past mistakes.

After a few moments, he found himself speaking to the stone; a pointless exercise, as the soul bound to the name he was tracing had long since moved on. Regardless, he related the events of the past months, somehow knowing just how much those long-lost ears would hunger for the news he brought them.

He was hesitantly relating the meeting with the Spirit King's messenger when a voice, sharp and half-familiar, cut through his quiet thoughts with a loud proclamation of "Bya-kun, we have got to get you a livelier bunch of friends."

Raising his head, he sent a narrow-eyed glare at the Shinigami striding up the hill to him, a sharp-edged grin creasing the beard-stubbled face. "Really, kid," Kurosaki Isshin drawled, sauntering over to lean on the gravestone next to his late wife's, "you spend too much time talking to ghosts. Especially," the man added with a sudden leer, "when you should be talking to certain redheads...?"

Years ago, before Byakuya had even entered the Gotei, he had known both Shiba Isshin and Shiba Kaien quite well. He could not honestly say he had been on particularly friendly terms with either of them; Isshin had been too old to be Byakuya's contemporary and far too young to be Ginrei's, and Kaien's mischievous schemes had gotten Byakuya into trouble more than once, something Byakuya had never quite forgiven.

However, Kaien and his father had shared a number of characteristics - they were, in fact, so alike that they had often been mistaken for brothers, rather than a father and son. It was strange, really, to know that Kurosaki Ichigo was, in part, from the same family; he shared all of their brashness but none of their charm, all of the irreverence but none of their easygoing kindness. The charisma was there, certainly; any of the three men could have maidens and hardened warriors alike at their beck and call, if they wished, but both Kaien and his father had possessed a particular gift for turning awkward situations into amusing ones.

Awkward situations like being found talking to the gravestone of another man's deceased wife about her new grandchildren, while hiding from his own problems. He could feel Isshin's gaze on him, a silent but inescapable weight, and eventually surrendered to that inexorable pressure.

"Renji and I... had a disagreement," Byakuya managed to explain, the words feeling like razor-edged sandpaper against the inside of his throat. "I am not certain that he wishes to speak to me at the moment."

"Yoroichi mentioned that something had blown up between the two of you," Isshin answered, scratching absently at the back of his neck. "Did you want to talk about it? I'm not a therapist, but -"

"Most certainly not," Byakuya snapped back, the response automatic and fierce, and Isshin shook his head in something that might have been exasperation.

"You do realize you're an idiot."

The words were so unexpected, and delivered so casually, that it took Byakuya's mind a second to process what had actually been said. When they did finally sink in, however, his head snapped around, an indignant retort rising on his lips, which was cut off before it could begin by a sharp wave of Isshin's hand.

"Don't you take that nobler-than-thou stance on _me_, boy! You know full well who I used to be, and I could still turn you over my knee without too much fuss!"

"You would not _dare_," Byakuya growled, his temper boiling up through ever-thinner restraints as the elder Shinigami merely smirked at him. It would take so little for him to call up Senbonzakura enough to make a reasonable threat - perhaps removing a few of those inelegant fingers?

Isshin, for his part, bit back his smile a little. His goading had achieved the desired reaction - to drag Byakuya out of the dull depression that the fight with Renji had left him in, bringing a bit of spirit back into the young noble's eyes.

Meeting those mercurial eyes - gray, now, with a flashing undertone of cobalt that only appeared when the Kuchiki scion was genuinely pissed - Isshin said, every word slow and distinct, "You. Are. Being. An. Idiot."

"Call me that again," Byakuya growled, one bare hand inching towards Senbonzakura's hilt, "and you will not have a knee left to turn me over."

"It's the truth!" Isshin barked at him. "You love Renji, dammit, or at least I would sincerely hope you do, since you're _married_ to the man! When you love someone, you fight to make things work between you, not just allow one stupid fight to end everything you've worked to accomplish! Don't you remember everything you both went through in order for you two to marry? Are you going to let all that go to waste because of one argument?"

"It is not my intention to allow anything to go to waste between Renji and myself," Byakuya snapped back. "However, as Renji pointed out earlier, I have never been able to speak those so-important words to him, and I do not know if he is willing to forgive me."

Isshin snorted, shaking his head in appalled disbelief. "I take it back. Idiot is too mild a term for you." Byakuya gaped at him in furious astonishment, but Isshin simply bulldozed on. "Whether you say the words or not has no impact on the fact that you already feel them - you _are_ in love with Renji, just like he's in love with you, and all you're accomplishing by avoiding the words is hurting him _and_ yourself! Renji has spent his entire life wanting to be accepted and loved, and now the one person who should be able to give him everything he's ever wanted is too much of a coward to say 'I love you' to him!"

When the young noble's face went from furious to stricken, Isshin softened his voice slightly. "Byakuya, 'I love you' were the last words I ever spoke to Kaien, and to Masaki, and I can promise you I never regretted uttering them. They're also the same words I speak to my daughters every day, and I try to tell Ichigo every time I see him. We don't live in a peaceful world, and the last thing I ever want is to part with someone I love on angry terms."

Another flash of memory, this one out of place in those that had been haunting Byakuya's mind since he'd fled, flashed over him; Kaien's furious face, his adamant insistence that Rukia be allowed to take a seated officer's position, and Byakuya's increasingly harsh denials...

Kaien had called him a fool and a coward before slamming his teacup down and storming out of the room, leaving Byakuya fuming at the older man's impudence.

It was only three days later that Ukitake had summoned Byakuya - to the Fourth Division, not the Thirteenth - and told him in a broken voice, his eyes red-rimmed, that Kaien was dead.

The words had been a blow to the heart - no matter his opinion of Kaien's disposition, it could never be denied that the man was an asset to the Gotei; a powerful warrior, unceasingly vibrant and so incredibly _alive... _Merely processing the fact of his death had taken long hours, marked by the faint echos of Rukia's sobs.

"We are warriors, Byakuya," Isshin said gently, stepping forward to lay a hand on the younger noble's shoulder. Byakuya ducked backwards, trying to escape the touch, but Isshin simply moved with him, not allowing himself to be shaken off. "Think about it. Do you really want to consider losing someone, and not having your last words to them be 'I love you'?"

It was, in truth, precisely the opposite that Byakuya feared. He could remember the words rising on his tongue as he lay curled against Ukitake's back, and opening his mouth to speak them just before a wracking fit of coughing left the older man's blood spattering the bed.

The attack had been severe; nearly enough to kill the senior Captain, he overheard Unohana murmur as he loitered outside Ukitake's room, listening to her berating Kyouraku and Ginrei.

That night was the last time that Byakuya dared touch Jyuushiro. He had left only a tersely polite letter to thank his master for the training he had received, and from that day on treated him as a friendly colleague at best. If Ukitake was hurt by this, he gave no indication; indeed, his treatment of Byakuya changed very little, save that he quietly accepted the unspoken ban on physical contact between them.

It had taken Byakuya decades to muster the courage to let the words twist their way through his throat again, gently holding Hisana's hand as they watched the sunset from the manor's gardens. He'd let them pass his lips that time, finding the taste of them terrifying and exhilarating all at once. Hisana had merely smiled sadly at him and not replied.

Less than a week later, her health began to decline.

Six months later, the smoke from her funeral pyre had burned Byakuya's eyes almost enough to justify tears. He subdued them mercilessly, feeling his heart shatter as he turned away, vowing never to speak the words again.

There was a third time, or rather, a first, farther back than the other two, that was trying to overwhelm him now; brief flashes of wet silk and black hair spread upon a graveled shore. He fought the memories back, attacking them as violently as he would a Hollow, and Isshin leaned a little closer to him, a frown etching deep lines into his face.

"That's it, isn't it? You're afraid to speak the words because you think they will be the last ones you ever say to him?"

Byakuya turned his head away, struggling to ignore the question, but Isshin's fingers were suddenly tight around his chin, forcing him to face the older Shinigami again, and try as he might, he couldn't shield that fear from Isshin's eyes. "Oh, Byakuya," the man muttered, his tone pitying, "don't you see it? The words aren't a curse. They're a blessing. The most wonderful thing one person can ever give another is their love."

* * *

"Renji-sama?"

His eyes dark and downcast, Renji barely blinked acknowledgement as Riko knelt to settle the tray carefully on the low table beside him. He had not moved from his place on the veranda outside his and Byakuya's bedchamber since returning to it that morning, and the sight of the food on the tray reminded him that the pangs in his stomach were not merely due to his anxiety.

Despite that, he made no attempt to reach for the food, just stared as blankly at the softly-steaming bowls as he had at the garden beyond the veranda until Riko shifted uncomfortably, the cloth of her uniform kimono rustling softly on the polished wood.

"Is there anything I can help you with, Renji-sama?" came the diffident query, and Renji sighed in response.

"Not unless y' got a bigger window int' Byakuya's head than I do," he answered ruefully, and blinked a little when the woman froze in place. "Riko?"

"Renji-sama, I..." Even with her head bowed, hiding her expression, Renji could see the agitation written clearly across Riko's shoulders, tightening her neck, twisting her hands in the skirt of her kimono. "Renji-sama, I have been with the Kuchiki household for many years, perhaps more than you realize. I cannot freely divulge the secrets of my tenure here, but if I were ordered..." she trailed off, hands white-knuckled around the navy blue fabric, head still bowed to low for him to read.

It took him a second of thought to realize what the woman was hinting at - how much of Byakuya's past she knew, how the oaths of service that bound her word and honor to the family - and how Renji, as a member of that family through his union to Byakuya, could order her to tell him what she knew.

His decision was instantaneous. "Tell me about Byakuya."

* * *

Arranged in a comfortable seiza, her head still respectfully lowered, Riko folded her hands in her lap, time-worn fingers clenching around one another as she considered her words.

"As Renji-sama knows, I, unlike the other servants of the Kuchiki house, hail from Rukongai. I was rescued from that place as a young child, after a Hollow attack killed the majority of my family." The words were spoken tonelessly, devoid of any kind of emotion, and Renji winced in recognition - it was the same way he spoke of the horrors he had endured during his childhood, the same way Byakuya spoke of Hisana. It was how someone spoke when a memory was too painful to touch, no matter how many years ago it had been.

"It was the Sixth Division, lead by Ginrei-sama, who arrived to combat the Hollows and destroy them," she continued quietly. "I was the youngest of my remaining family, and my elder siblings did not wish to be burdened with a child too young and weak to be of use. Ginrei-sama, in great kindness, offered me a position within his household as the companion of his young daughter, Amaya. At the time, she had no companions who were not seeking social gain from her acquaintance, and she was desperately lonely for a simple friend. I was Rukon, I was safe. There was nothing of society I had to gain, and everything to lose. I accepted, and became Amaya-sama's friend and handmaiden. Serving my lady was a joy, for she was a kind and wonderful woman, and I gained a great affection for her. When she became older, I had the honor of serving as the attendant at her wedding, and later, as a nurse to Byakuya-sama after his birth."

It wasn't hard to hear the faint, wistful smile in her tone, and Renji shoved away a faint sense of disbelief. He'd known that Riko had been with the family for years, but he'd had no idea that she'd served Byakuya or his mother so closely, or felt so much for her.

"After her husband's betrayal, Amaya-sama was thrown into a deep depression," Riko confessed softly, the happiness in her tone fleeing as she spoke. "I tried my meager best to console her and Byakuya-sama, but it seemed that every comfort I offered her was for nothing, until a year after his betrayal. Then, quite suddenly, my lady began to take an interest again; she contacted the Shihoin to ask if Byakuya might spend time training with their princess, Yoroichi-sama, and requested that I go to a particular Rukongai market, to buy a candy my mistress was most fond of. I was delighted, thinking that she had begun to recover from the pain inflicted on her. We bid her goodbye, I escorted Byakuya-sama to the Shihoin house, and then departed for Rukongai."

Riko paused for a long moment, and he heard her inhale a staggering breath. "I thought Amaya-sama was recovering," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I was... incredibly wrong. You have never seen it, Renji-sama, but two centuries ago, there was a fine, large koi pond where the mausoleum is now, with a bridge spanning it. The water was... very deep in the center.

"With Byakuya-sama and I gone, Amaya-sama retrieved her wedding clothes from storage and dressed herself in them. She then went to the center of the bridge, where the water was deepest, and..." Riko's voice broke, her shoulders trembling as she forced the last words out. "She threw herself in."

Horror closed Renji's throat. He'd seen the wedding garments of a noble woman; layers upon layers of embroidered silk, all of them heavy enough when they were dry. Saturated with water...

"Amaya could not swim," came the shattered whisper, and Renji clenched his teeth as he felt nausea rise in his stomach.

"She drowned," he said softly, and Riko nodded once, a tremulous jerk of her head, before collecting herself with a few shuddering breaths.

"That is not the worst of it," Riko warned him, her own voice ragged with tears she was barely suppressing, and Renji stared at her for a long moment, wishing he could simply walk away and leave himself numb to this horror, but knowing he needed to hear this, feel this, know the pain in Byakuya's past.

"Byakuya-sama was to have remained at the Shihoin house for several days, training with the princess, but Yoroichi-sama is... difficult, when she wishes to be. Byakuya-sama grew frustrated and returned home only hours after he had left."

Renji's stomach, empty though it was, twisted viciously, he pressed one hand over his mouth, feeling bile burn his throat. "Oh, gods. Byakuya -"

Riko lifted her head to meet his eyes, and her tears spilled over as she did so, painting the first faint streaks of black down her face from the charcoal lining her eyes. "Byakuya-sama was the one to find his mother's body," she admitted, the pain and guilt behind the words nearly slurring them into incomprehensibility. "And I was... in Rukon... blind, stupid little fool..."

At the back of his mind, Renji felt the familiar shift of a cool, lethal reiatsu, a gentle brush like a flower-scented breeze. "_What she neglects to tell you,_" sighed Senbonzakura, his voice weary with bearing more pain than Renji could have imagined, "_where Byakuya-sama's last words to his mother."_

The nausea twisted his stomach again, so fiercely this time that Renji thought he could taste blood at the back of his throat, and all at once he realized exactly what those words had been.

"_I love you_."

* * *

His emotions in turmoil, Renji laid Zabimaru's naked blade across his knees and hurled himself into meditation. Riko had composed herself and all but fled, face burning with shame at having lost her composure so badly, but not before bowing to Renji's order that he not be disturbed for the rest of the afternoon. Not that he was likely to be - Riko was one of the few servants who deigned to serve him, and when his temper was this raw, most everyone in the household made it their policy to avoid him.

It wasn't difficult to understand why, when even his entry into his meditations was something that bordered on violent. It was not a slow, controlled descent into his inner world, but a crashing plunge, one that left him shaken and disoriented when he found himself in a familiar forest clearing.

The trees ringing the edge of the small meadow were dark and wild, twined with vines and alive with the wildlife that hid within them. The woods surrounding him were untamed, pathless, and vibrantly alive, protecting this tiny, sheltered little glade within the center of his soul. The sky above him roiled with stormclouds, thick black ones with hints of green on their bellies, and thunder echoed with a low and constant growl.

He had landed hard on his hands and knees, his hair falling forward to pool on the thick grass. Exhaling harshly, he let his head drop and twined his fingers into the emerald blades, feeling sharp edges cut into his skin where there should have been only yielding softness. It was new, that fierceness to the grass; sharp edges, jagged pain, within his soul and without. Perhaps meditating would not grant him the peace he had hoped after all.

"Oh, sstop being ssuch a baby," groused a familiar voice, and Renji lifted his too-heavy head to face the speaker, only to freeze with astonishment.

Zabimaru lay before him in the lush grass, muscular forelegs folded beneath its chest, cream-colored fur gleaming brightly in the slanting sunlight. Frowning, the nue turned to stare at him, deep-gold eyes dark with something that looked far too much like pity. The snake, however, had nothing of that softness in his face, merely hissing disdainfully at Renji before ducking behind the far side of the nue's flank.

None of this registered to Renji. Zabimaru was _always_ here, _always_ within him, the presence so familiar that he could not remember a time, even in Rukongai, when he did not feel the primal thunder of the creature's heartbeat.

Not so for the other figure.

Clad in purple silks and crimson armor, the samurai was sitting calmly on the deep grass, his legs stretched out before him and his back resting against Zabimaru's shoulder. He was utterly unfamiliar to Renji, and yet...

"You're Senbonzakura."

The samurai nodded slowly, his expression indiscernible behind a black and crimson mask. His hair was long enough to pool on the grass beside his hip where he sat, the deep-brown of it an odd contrast to the stark blackness of the markings across Zabimaru's foreleg.

It was strange, seeing the manifestation of the other spirit for the first time. Renji had grown used to hearing the blade's voice, so similar to Byakuya's own, within his mind, but actually having the warrior here and before him only served to drive home Byakuya's absence.

"Tell me he's all right," Renji said finally, his hands tightening in the grass beneath him until the blades cut deeply enough to draw blood. "Please tell me Byakuya's all right."

"Byakuya-sama is unhurt, physically," came the slow answer, and the rush of relief that swept over Renji was enough to drive the breath from his chest.

After a long moment, when he had calmed himself enough to begin again, he raised his head to meet the spirit's eyes, shadowed though they were by the mask he wore. "I don' mean t' sound ungrateful," Renji began hesitantly, carefully sitting back on his heels and resting his bloodied hands on his knees, "but why are you here, an' not with Byakuya?"

"I am here because your need is greater," came the level answer, which left Renji frowning in confusion.

"Which means," came the snake's voice from behind the bulk of Zabimaru's main body, "that you're ssimply being more pathetic right now."

"Bastard," Renji shot back, although the epithet held no heat, just weary tolerance. He'd been dealing with both sides of his blade-spirit far too long to take the snake's jibes to heart any more.

The baboon merely grunted and shot a narrow-eyed look over its own back to glower at the unrepentant snake.

"Renji-sama," Senbonzakura began diffidently, ignoring the silent glaring contest between the two halves of his backrest, "I know that Byakuya-sama has given you reason to doubt his affections over the past years -"

"No," Renji interrupted quickly, raising his hand to stop the spirit's words. A few thin drops of blood tickled their way down his palm at the movement, and he forced himself to ignore them. "No, he hasn't. He's given me everythin' I coulda ever asked for. We're partners, equals t' him, an' that's more than a mutt like me had ever dreamed of. I know we belong t' each other, body, heart, mind, an' soul, an' I was stupid t' ever doubt it."

"Sso why did you?" the serpent muttered lowly, and three sets of eyes - the baboon, the samurai, and the Shinigami - all turned to glare at it. Renji's gaze softened after a moment, though, and he exhaled a weary sigh.

"Like I said, was me bein' stupid. I know the truth, but I can't help wantin' to hear the words. I knew, long time b'fore I ever dreamed of tyin' myself t' Byakuya, that he was as broken as I was. Am. He's got as much shit in his past as I do, maybe more, an' it's not fair t' either of us fer me t' demand things of him that he ain't ready t' give."

"That," the snake grumbled, raising its head a little higher, "does not answer the question."

"You wan' an answer?" Renji snapped back, letting his aggravation put a bite in his tone. "Fine! I was upset, I was angry an' jealous an' I lost my goddamned temper, is that what you wanna hear?"

"Jealous?" That was from the baboon, the deep rumble of his voice curious. "Jealous of what, Renji? You said yourself that you and Byakuya have everything of one another - what have you to be jealous of?"

Renji snorted softly, the sound of it sharp and bitter. "You obviously weren't listenin' too well t' the discussion we were havin'," he muttered, and the nue only cocked both its heads in response.

"Neither of us like it, but Ichigo's right. Byakuya's gonna have t' turn to a woman if he wants t' breed an heir of his own bloodline. I've known that since b'fore I joined 'im, been expectin' it all along, but it's still gonna hurt like hell when he has t' step away from me and go lie with some..." Cutting himself off with a flap of his hands, Renji shook his head, looking discouraged. "I try not t' think about it, but what if he decides he'd rather be with a woman again? What if..." Renji shook his head slightly, squeezing his eyes shut as his deepest fear spilled from his mouth, because even if these spirits were his soul and his soul-bound, he couldn't bear for them to see him weep, "What if he doesn' come back t' me?"

There was a moment of shocked, utter silence, before the snake stretched itself upward, opening its mouth to deliver a no-doubt scathing comment -

"Leave it, hebi-san."

Startled, the snake fell backwards slightly before recovering, twisting back on his own body in order to peer down at the warrior still leaning against the baboon's shoulder. "Whaat?"

"Leave it," the samurai repeated, and, much to Renji's surprise, raised his hands to the gold wings of the war-mask he wore and, without preamble, lifted the mask away.

The face revealed was stunning, not simply for its beauty, but for its resemblance to the master the spirit served. His skin was nearly white where Byakuya's was merely pale, his long bangs falling messily over a face that was slightly finer, slightly sharper, but his appearance was so similar overall that the two might have passed for brothers. "You seem so surprised, Renji-sama," Senbonzakura smirked as the Shinigami stared at him, gape-mouthed. "Did you believe the mask was welded to my head?"

"I - no, but, you..." Shaking his head, Renji managed to collect himself enough to spit out a single coherent word. "_Why?_"

Sighing softly, the spirit set his mask down gently in his lap and spread his gauntleted hands, his silver-blue eyes meeting Renji's. "I am the truest core of Byakuya-sama's soul, Renji-sama. I know his every thought, from the barest flicker of consideration to the ruminations that eat the hours away. And I can tell you those words, even if they do not come yet from his lips. Byakuya loves you, Abarai Renji, with everything he is. He will not leave you; no man or woman could tempt him from your side, and, heir or no heir, he will lie with no other while you are his. Short of death, there is nothing that will -"

The spirit broke off, suddenly, his eyes going wide just as both halves of Zabimaru bolted upright, nearly spilling the samurai face-first into the grass. All three of their voices sounded in frantic unison, echoed distantly by a fourth, outside of his body, all screaming the same words; "_Renji, look out!_"

* * *

The meditative state shattered around him, spilling Renji back into his physical body with a painful jolt. Bewilderment barely had time to set in as he opened his eyes, and found himself looking up at a brown-haired, brown eyed man in the dress of a Kuchiki servant and the smile of a madman.

He didn't even have time to react before Tsutomu plunged the knife into his chest.

* * *

O

* * *

A/N: I must admit, I was a little surprised by the reaction to the last chapter. It didn't seem to actually occur to _anybody_ that Renji might be in danger from a proven psychopath (remember, Tsutomu is the one who butchered Rei the ward-matron!) who worships Masa, who we all know hates Renji's guts. Nobody actually reacted to the 'there's an assassin being sent after Renji', other than to casually dismiss it.

Clearly you've all gotten a bit too complacent about my niceness... I don't like writing angst and character deaths, but on the rare occasion that I do, they are, sadly, some of my best works.

I'll try to get chapter fifteen up next week, shall I?


	15. Realizations and Reassessments

A/N: Another emotionally weighty chapter, I'm afraid. Byakuya does a bit of thinking about his past; anyone who's wondered about the scars I continually mention on his wrists will have their suspicions answered. This chapter does deal with themes that some of you might find either highly disturbing, very personal, or both.

For me, the matter is personal; I went through a period of severe depression in my teens after the death of a friend, and spent the better part of five years teetering on the edge of suicide. A great deal of what Byakuya is going through in this chapter is drawn from personal experience.

Although I have long since moved from that depression, the memory of those ugly years will linger, likely for the rest of my life. However, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and should never be considered an option. There is always hope - in a friend, in a family member, in a kind stranger on the street. If you are depressed, talk to someone. If you believe someone you know is depressed, talk to them. _ All suicides are preventable._

Warnings: Discussion of attempted/planned suicide. Angst. Cliffhanger, again.

Translator's Notes:

Go and Shogi are Japanese board games, designed to teach tactics and strategy. Shogi is often referred to as Japanese chess; Go is played by two people using black and white markers to stake out portions of a game board. Black always makes the first move at the beginning of the game. (Go is also the subject of its own manga series, _Hikaru no Go_, which I do recommend reading if you get the chance.)

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 15: Realizations and Reassessments

* * *

_Byakuya turned his head away, struggling to ignore the question, but Isshin's fingers were suddenly tight around his chin, forcing him to face the older Shinigami again, and try as he might, he couldn't shield that fear from Isshin's eyes. "Oh, Byakuya," the man muttered, his tone pitying, "don't you see it? The words aren't a curse. They're a blessing. The most wonderful thing one person can ever give another is their love."_

Wearily, Byakuya gazed into the dark eyes meeting his own. Once, Isshin had been a Captain of the Gotei, well-respected and well-liked. His power had been exceptional; not all of Ichigo's strength came from his royal mother's blood, after all - but Isshin had one shining mark in his history that so many people envied.

Isshin was one of those very few who had been fortunate enough to be a part of Kyouraku and Ukitake's relationship. After over a thousand years together, both men were assured enough of the other's love that they would occasionally welcome a third party to their bed. It had been rare, very rare, that they would do so, but Isshin's charisma and kindness had charmed them both, to the point that Byakuya honestly believed both men had fallen in love with the Shiba head. When Isshin had disappeared, with no warning and no trace, those long decades ago, it had left a lingering darkness over the two men. Ukitake's gentle cheer had flattened, and he had taken to spending far more time at his estate, with the excuse that his illness was growing worse. Nobody would dare suggest aloud that the white-haired man was avoiding his Lieutenant, but Shiba Kaien was very much his father's son.

Kyouraku, for his part, drank. Not merely indulging in the evenings, off-hours, but through the length of the day, leaving himself in a sake-dulled haze from breakfast to bed, and drinking more every day to combat the aching head and the growing tolerance of the alcohol. The two spent less and less time apart, as though on some level, they were both distantly afraid that the other would vanish as well.

"I suppose," Byakuya said finally, raising a hand to slap Isshin's presumptuous fingers away from his chin, "that you would know the blessing of love better than anyone, for you certainly have more of it to give."

The comment was meant to be stinging, and Isshin winced faintly, acknowledging Byakuya's blow as he lowered his hand and stepped back, giving the young noble his room.

"Kaien and I were very alike in that respect," Isshin admitted, nodding at Byakuya's assessment. "We'd give our hearts to whomever opened their hands, but our souls... those were destined for one person and one person only. His soulmate was Miyako; mine was Masaki. And you, Byakuya? Your heart may have spoken Hisana's name, but your soul is screaming Renji's."

"And if I do lose him? What then?" Byakuya spat back. "Am I to live the rest of my life in agony like you, or shall I finally finish the task I twice started, when first my mother and then my wife left me?" Raising both his arms, his fists clenched, he turned his hands so that the insides of his wrists were bared to Isshin's gaze, the faint light tracing over the white scars that marred the once-perfect skin.

Isshin stared silently at the old wounds for a long moment, his eyes darkening with the weight of knowledge as he did. Finally, when neither man could stand the silence any longer, he said simply, "I never took you for a coward, Byakuya. A person can survive without their soul."

"Survive," Byakuya sneered back, letting his arms fall to his sides. "Survive as you have, _Kurosaki_, at the cost of your heart as well? What worth does that half-life bring? You have remained alive only for the sake of your children, and you yield your body to the man that loves you as he suffers in silence, watching you wait for the day your children can survive without you!"

His eyes flaring wide, Isshin stumbled back a step, looking as though Byakuya's words had struck him in the stomach. Relentlessly, the young noble chased after the weakness he had discovered, implacable, unstoppable.

"How _dare_ you criticize my actions, when you are only biding time before you imitate them? How can you presume to lecture me on my affairs, when your own life is only a broken parody? Do not lecture me on matters of the heart, Kurosaki Isshin, until your own is in order! Attend your heart or not, I do not care, but until you have more to offer me, leave me to my own pain."

With that, he turned away, leaving Isshin staring after him with horror written across his face.

* * *

He was, perhaps, not the last person Ishida Ryuuken had expected to find on his doorstep, but Isshin's presence there was... unanticipated. It was not a Friday, it was not the anniversary of anyone's death, and there were no Hollows in the area, which eliminated all of the usual excuses for having the Shinigami come to him.

Their arrangement was one of mutual comfort; even Ryuuken could not call it _convenience_, because it was not convenient at all. It was irritating and tiresome, spending every Friday night with the Shinigami in his house, in his bed, offering a comfort and warmth that was so surprisingly, painfully human. It was less convenient for Isshin, though, who had spent the first years of it sneaking home before dawn on Saturday mornings, with his breath smelling like a distillery and his shirt buttoned crooked, hoping that none of his children would have wakened during the night to find him gone. (None of the children ever noticed the black cat that slipped in and out of their windows on those long nights, and there were no passers-by on the street in the hours when Isshin returned home, to wonder at the drunken man talking to a cat on his doorstep.)

No, the relationship was not easy, not convenient; in truth, it was probably the most difficult part of either of their lives. But neither man was willing to surrender it; not for all the bad blood between their people, not for the lies of contempt they built between them, not for the shock of their children if they should ever be discovered. And despite his willingness to let the once-Captain into his bed and body, Ryuuken was always the one who waited like a damsel in her high tower, waited for Isshin to come walking into his arms.

Ryuuken did not dispute Kurosaki Isshin's bravery, not anywhere near so much as he would have the man think. The once-Captain had survived the loss of his powers, his friends, his entire _world_. He'd helped Masaki escape her father, the most powerful being in the Spirit realm, only to lose her to something as base as a Hollow. He had been forced to stand by and watch his only son come within a hairsbreadth of throwing his life away in a war he should have had no part in. All of it together was something that would have broken a lesser man.

Truth be told, though, there were days when he questioned whether or not it hadn't broken Isshin as well, on some level, leaving fractures too deep to be seen.

Little did it matter if it had, though. Ryuuken knew that he himself was as damaged as any man, and more than many. The fact that he'd fallen in love with a pity-fuck who was supposed to be his mortal enemy told him that.

"Ryuuken," Isshin began, his voice wary and his eyes oddly shy. "Can I come in?"

Asking permission? This was certainly new - always before the man had barged in as though he owned the house, utterly heedless of decorum or propriety. Forcing his mask of cool blankness over the confusion his face wanted to show, Ryuuken wordlessly stepped back to allow the taller man into the house.

Isshin walked heavily today, as if something beyond his usual troubles was weighing on him. Even without direction from Ryuuken, he made his way directly to the kitchen - stark-white and little used - and dropped wearily into one of the white-painted wooden chairs at the table as Ryuuken trailed him in.

A more courteous host would have offered a drink or an understanding platitude, but Ryuuken was not by nature a kind man, and he and Isshin were long past polite courtesies.

"Why are you here, Isshin?" he asked finally, settling himself gracefully in the chair opposite the other man. It wasn't that he objected to Isshin's presence, precisely, more that it simply bewildered him. Ishida Ryuuken was not the sort of person who appreciated things beyond his understanding.

A soft, weary laugh answered his question, one edged in startling bitterness. "I went to knock some sense into Seireitei's tragic prince," he answered, laughing and scrubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. "Turns out I was the one getting knocked, though. He made me see... made me realize what I've been doing to you all these years, Ryuuken. The first time we met, I thought I was saving you, but honestly, I think you've been saving me all along."

"I'm no one's white knight, Isshin," Ryuuken lied smoothly, trying not to let his growing alarm show in his face or voice. "Any saving I've done has been purely accidental."

"Which is exactly what makes this all so much harder," Isshin chuckled sadly, finally meeting the other man's eyes. "Ryuuken, I'm still paying my allegiance to a woman who's been dead nearly two decades. I've been using you all along, using your body and ignoring both our hearts, and it's not fair to either one of us to keep going as we have been."

"Isshin?" Ryuuken knew his control was slipping, and he couldn't quite stop it; his growing concern left a shadow of worry in his voice.

"I was planning to kill myself when I was sure my children no longer needed me. Put my soul back into the cycle and maybe, maybe be lucky enough to forget how much I've lost."

Ryuuken nodded, once, his face frozen in blankness once again. Isshin wasn't telling him anything he hadn't already known.

"But... I don't know if I want to do that anymore. It's been something to focus on for so long, a simple goal, a simple end, that I didn't have to think about. I never had to consider where my life was going, because I knew how it was going to end. But now Byakuya's made me start _thinking_ again, damn him."

Fear like an icy arrow stabbed itself into Ryuuken's heart, and he drew back slightly from the table, forcing his features into their too-familiar icy mask. "So you're going to kill yourself now instead of later, I suppose, and avoid having any more inconvenient thoughts in this lifetime? Or, better yet, you'll have me destroy your very soul so that you never have to think again?" He spat the words across the table, caustic as acid, and hoped the light splintering off the lenses of his glasses would hide the telltale glitter in his eyes.

"No, Ryuuken," Isshin answered gently, holding one hand across the tabletop. Ryuuken recoiled from it as though it were a venomous snake. "Ryuuken, I don't... I don't want to live just to die. I want to start over with the life I have, with the people who care for me. With you, Ryuuken."

His eyes pleading, Isshin held his had forward, steady and strong. "Please, Ryuuken. Give me another chance. Let me do this right."

* * *

Left alone among the graves, Byakuya stared silently at the clouds rushing by overhead, obscuring the bright pinpricks of the stars. His hands rested on the wind-cooled stone behind him, steadying him as he leaned back, his eyes on those faint, diamond-bright flickers between the clouds. The last time he had simply let himself watch the stars like this had been...

...had been the night Renji had confessed his love, sitting beside Byakuya on a boulder beneath a cherry tree, the pair of them gazing at the stars between the moon-gilded branches. Smiling faintly, Byakuya remembered the expression of utter shock on Renji's face after Byakuya had kissed him, tasted him.

He'd known, as soon as their lips touched, that he had to find a way, any way, to be with the man who had reignited the fire within his soul, the fire he'd thought lost after so much pain in his life had frozen his heart.

Idly, his hands moved, each finding the slick white scars on the inside of the opposite wrist. After he'd discovered his mother's body, he had spent three days in mourning, refusing to eat or speak. On the fourth day, he'd returned to the lake where his mother had drowned and thrown himself off the bridge, attempting to follow her to the next world.

The guards had drawn him out of the frigid water, pounded his back to drive the remnants of the lake from his mouth, his lungs, until the commotion brought Ginrei and half the servants in the manor to the narrow shore.

Byakuya had been whisked off to the baths to drive the chill from his body, and Ginrei had ordered the bridge destroyed and the lake filled and planted over. The mausoleum that held Amaya's grave was constructed on the very spot where she had ended her life.

The incident had been swept under the proverbial rug, never mentioned again after Ginrei's stern lecture on _honor_ and _strength _while Byakuya huddled on his futon that night, his lungs aching with every breath.

And then Hisana had died. Her name was still fresh-carved in the granite marker when Byakuya had traced the little knife down the skin of his wrists, ignoring Senbonzakura's screams, ignoring everything, until the blackness finally swept over him, and he surrendered himself to what he hoped was the peace of oblivion.

He'd awoken hours later in the Fourth Division, with a coldly furious Unohana, a teary-eyed Ukitake, and a blank-faced Ginrei in attendance, his wrists burning with agony under thick layers of bandages.

For the next year, he was not left alone for an instant, even to bathe himself - a servant or a family member was always lurking conspicuously nearby. His Captaincy trials a few short years later had included a fairly intensive round of psychological evaluations, which had concluded with Kurotsuchi calling him insane, Unohana murmuring that he was of sound mind if perhaps rather depressed, and Ukitake suggesting, with a faint edge to his cheerful voice, that maybe Byakuya-kun could benefit from a vacation?

He'd ignored all of them, continued wearing the tekkou to cover the now-healed scars on the insides of his wrists, and the subject had never been brought up again. At least with Zaraki as one of the Captains, he could always point out he was not the only one with a few suicidal tendencies. There wasn't single ranking officer in the Gotei who believed the Kenpachi _didn't_ have a death wish, considering how recklessly he flung himself at the strongest opponents he could find.

The truth of it was, however, neither Byakuya nor Kenpachi truly wished for death; Kenpachi was trying to find his limits - which, if he ever succeeded, he would likely not survive - and Byakuya had realized, after the loss of his mother, that a life without love was something barely worth living. Those close to him had pulled him through, twice now, but if he were to lose Renji...

The wind blew, an edge of sharpness to it, and Byakuya traced his faintly-chilled fingers over the scars once again. He had thought that he loved Hisana with all of his being; it was not until he had realized the depth of his feeling for Renji that he began to appreciate the difference between the gentle, quiet love he'd felt for Hisana and the wildfire-torrent of love he held for Renji.

_Losing oka-san, losing Hisana, both broke me. But I healed. Losing Renji, _Byakuya realized_, would destroy me. _

As if his thoughts had been the catalyst, the faint murmur at the back of his mind - Senbonzakura and Zabimaru, holding a distant conversation that he presumed was with Renji - erupted into screams. Three frantic, terrified voices screamed in perfect unison, the words echoing through Byakuya's mind, suddenly blank with fear.

"_Renji, look out!"_

"Senbonzakura!" he called instantly, reaching towards the warrior-spirit with every ounce of his will. There was nothing for a split-second, and then the sharp voice of Zabimaru's snake-half cut through his numbing fear with a single word.

"_Assassin_!"

Distantly, Byakuya felt Renji's reiatsu rise, and then... burst. Like a firework, a brilliant flare of power that dimmed to nothingness in a breath.

The tip of Senbonzakura's blade cleaved the air before his master, keying open the Senkaimon in a burst of energy, and Byakuya hurled himself into that light.

* * *

_Clack._

"What are you trying to accomplish with that move? I'm pushing in on your territory over here, and you - oh. Damn."

_Clack._

"That's not going to stop me, you realize."

_Clack._

"Of course it isn't. You're one of Seireitei's best strategists. But that doesn't mean I won't go down fighting."

_Clack._

"With all due respect, Hisagi-taichou, Kira-taichou, don't you two have somewhere else you can play?"

"Sadly, no," Kira answered, barely glancing down at the carved wooden board resting on the tabletop between himself and Shuuhei before snapping his piece down. "Oddly enough, Renji is the only one of us who has an intact Go set."

"Probably because it never gets used," Shuuhei chuckled, glowering at the heavy, carved gameboard as he fiddled with the black marble marker in his hand. "How am I supposed to put one stone in three places at once?"

"It's called 'losing gracefully,' Shuuhei," Kira admonished mildly, and Hisagi snorted at him, his focus still on the board.

"For your information, Abarai-taichou and Kuchiki-taichou play every Friday morning," Ise Minori snapped back, shuffling the completed paperwork on her desk into something approximating order and cramming it into her outbox.

"Every week, huh? Who plays black?" Shuuhei asked mildly, finally setting his stone with an indecisive grimace.

"Kuchiki-taichou always makes the first move."

"Ah. Well, if Kuchiki-taichou is using the set, that explains why all the pieces are still present," Kira mused calmly, easily setting his stone to block Shuuhei's attempt at regaining control. "If any of the pieces are lost, he can certainly afford to replace them. Although I would have expected a finer board."

"Taichou carved that one decades ago," Minori sighed, rifling through the stack of paperwork still lingering on the corner of her desk and scowling. "He's done others, much finer than that one, but it was the first Go board he did, and he decided to keep it." Pushing away from her desk with an exasperated grimace, she crossed the room to Renji's cluttered workspace and began shuffling through the papers on his desk, finally extracting a sheaf of papers with a faintly relieved sigh. "He gave me a Shogi set for my last birthday, actually, that he had carved by hand. It's quite spectacular."

"He does have a remarkable skill with woodcarving," Kira agreed mildly, sending Shuuhei a sharp glance across the board. "It's your move."

"I've got nowhere _to_ move that'll help," Shuuhei grumbled, tossing his stone absently in his hand as he surveyed the board. Kira's white stones had seized the majority of territory before Shuuhei had even managed to work out a solid strategy for the game, and there wasn't much hope of Shuuhei retaking the board now. "Yield," he sighed, sounding mildly disgusted, and Kira smiled as he began clearing the board.

"You two still aren't going to convince me that you came halfway across Seireitei just to borrow Renji-taichou's Go board," Minori spoke up again, the lacquered handle of her brush flashing as she slashed a signature - hers or Renji's, Shuuhei wasn't entirely sure - across the end of the page.

"Of course not," Shuuhei answered easily, carefully plucking the black stones from the board and dropping them back into the carved wooden cup by his knee. "Yumichika decided to celebrate having the full use of his arms back by challenging anyone who would listen to a spar. I figured it was better to leave him to it and just oversee cleanup afterwards."

"A magnificent stroke of either brilliance or cowardice, sir," came the sardonic reply, and Shuuhei's answering expression might have been called a smile if there had been fewer teeth involved.

Minori had served in the Ninth Division for almost her entire career, and Shuuhei knew her well enough to recognize the sharp-edged sarcasm as her way of expressing nerves. Not that her agitation was remotely surprising; Yumichika's cheerful rampage had only been an excuse - and a very thin one at that - for Shuuhei to come check up on his former officer and her Captain.

He'd heard Renji's bellowed declaration last night - hells, half of Seireitei had heard it, and the other half had already heard _of_ it. The rumor mill of the city fed just as eagerly on news of Byakuya and Renji's troubles as it had on their joining, and Shuuhei was worried for his friend.

When he'd attempted to track Renji down at the Fifth, though, he'd been met with a rather frazzled Minori, who had dutifully informed him that Renji's very strict orders were that he not be disturbed for anything short of an invasion. Given that no invasions seemed to be forthcoming, other than an invasion of rumors, Shuuhei - quickly joined by Kira, who had arrived only moments later on the same mission - had settled in to keep an extra eye on the Fifth and its people, knowing that Nanao was checking in on the Sixth.

The view out the window of the Fifth's main office - where Minori was battling paperwork and morale problems as Shuuhei and Kira were battling each other on the carved wooden board - showed the main courtyard and part of the training grounds of the Division, the heart of the compound. The officers on the grounds were still training steadily under the third seat's watchful eye; regardless of the drama in their Captain's life, their duty went on.

And Minori, stubborn creature that she was, would keep the Fifth and the Sixth both running as best she could, until their Captains returned.

Reasonably assured that things would manage here, Shuuhei dropped the lid back onto his cup of Go pieces and picked it up to place it back on the table as Kira did the same. It was time for both of them to return to their own Divisions, now that they were assured the Fifth was under control.

That was when they felt it.

The carved wooden cup crashed from Kira's hands, spilling white markers across the board and the floor in a rattling torrent. Shuuhei's cup, closer to the table, upended over the polished wood, scattering the black stones across the mahogany surface.

"_Captain_!"

Minori's half-scream tore through the momentary paralysis of the office, and Shuuhei and Kira surged to their feet, hands already on the hilts of their Zanpakutou, as the explosive flare of Renji's reiatsu suddenly collapsed into nothingness. White-faced, Minori spun for the door, only to be jerked backwards again as Shuuhei seized her shoulder.

"Get Soifon," he ordered flatly, composure already back in place, and Minori nodded once before vanishing out the door, her Shunpo leaving her a blur.

Kira and Shuuhei were out the door only a breath behind her, the ground blurring beneath their feet as they raced to the Kuchiki manor, hoping against hope that they would make it in time.

In their haste, not one of the three of them noticed the single white stone lying shattered on the floor behind them.

* * *

His heart thundering against his ribs, Byakuya tried not to think as he raced down through the corridor that was the Senkaimon, tried not to let thoughts of _too slow, too long_, pass through his mind, because he couldn't risk outpacing the Hell Butterfly that guided him.

When he finally burst through the terminal doors in a wash of white light, two of his house guards met him, their eyes frantic behind their masks as they held their hands out to him; he dodged them in Flashstep and ran on, moving for the other side of the estate where his quarters lay, where he knew Renji was.

One of Soifon's officers, his face black-veiled, flashed in front of him to block his path, and Byakuya struck him aside without thought, neither seeing nor caring where the limp form fell.

Even skimming the rooftops of the buildings, it seemed to take hours rather than the seconds it should have to cross the grounds of the estate, finally landing in his private garden with his heartbeat loud in his ears.

The small courtyard should have been empty, a haven for himself and his partner, but now it was crowded with people, too many for such a small space. Without trying, he could taste the ozone bite of Hisagi's reiatsu, the old-blood metallic flavor of Kira's, and the icy electricity of Soifon's.

"Byakuya-sama!" gasped a voice near his shoulder, and he half-turned his head to see his young cousin Fumio staring at him, silver eyes wide behind his glasses. Ko stood next to him, one hand clenching a book to her chest; the other hand holding tightly to Fumio's own. Haru stood behind both of them, his face and clothes sweat-dampened and a bokken in his hand.

"Kuchiki-taichou!" someone exclaimed, close at hand, and the cluster of people parted before him, giving him a clear glimpse of the veranda for the first time.

Staring at the sight before him, Byakuya felt his throat tighten, the long-unfamiliar burn of tears begin at the back of his eyes. "Renji..."


	16. Hello, Goodbye, Hello

A/N at bottom, as I imagine you're more eager to see Renji's fate than my blather, XD.

* * *

BONDS OF HONOR

Chapter 16: Hello, Goodbye, Hello

* * *

Clad comfortably in the dusty-blue yukata of a lower house servant, Tsutomu slipped effortlessly through the halls of the spacious manor. It was simple enough to find the location of his target within the labyrinthine structure; a few seconds of eavesdropping on a pair of girls polishing the floors had yielded murmurs of '_and we're not to go near the Masters' quarters, apparently Abarai-san is in a frightful mood and wants to be left alone.'_

Masa-sama had taken the time to educate his agent in the structure of the house, and Tsutomu slipped purposefully through the halls, gleefully aware of the weight of the dagger bound to his thigh. He moved quickly and steadily; the few upper servants that saw him assumed he had been set on some ordinary household task, and did not care to interfere.

He found the presumptuous whore that Masa-sama's unworthy cousin had been foolish enough to take into his life sitting in the courtyard outside the Head of House's quarters, meditating beneath the spreading sakura tree as though he felt he belonged. His Zanpakutou was settled across his knees, but the roughly callused hands had fallen away from it to rest on the ground beside his hips. All the better.

The dagger came free of the fine sheath with barely a whisper of well-oiled steel. Taking care to keep his steps soundless, Tsutomu stepped forward, slipping his way across the grass to where his Master's enemy sat unaware.

A swift, sharp kick of Tsutomu's foot to the hilt of the Zanpakutou sent the blade spinning away. He knew the blade would react, would warn its bearer somehow, but it would already be too late. The dagger he held was already poised above the whore's heart, ready to strike down.

So deep was he in the anticipation of his attack that he barely registered the sound of running feet in the rooms behind him - he could not be stopped now, nothing mattered beyond this strike.

"Renji, look out!" a voice cried from behind him, a split-second before the whore blinked open eyes the color of old blood, and Tsutomu smiled, imagining Masa's pleasure at having his enemy dead, before he drove the dagger home.

The blade struck bone.

Tsutomu cursed, fighting to draw the knife back so that he could strike again, and it was only at the last second that his senses warned him of the incoming danger. He ducked instinctively, twisting himself backwards and sideways, and the delicate throwing dagger that had been aimed at his heart merely sliced across the top of his shoulder.

It was not much of a distraction, but it was enough. The creature Tsutomu had been sent to kill surged to his feet, one hand striking the dagger from Tsutomu's grasp, but staggered wildly as blood fountained from the wound in his chest. Even though the dagger had not struck true, the spells placed on it were taking effect.

His smile vicious, Tsutomu did not resist as the house guards seized him, knowing his mission was a success. The whore would bleed dry from the wound he had inflicted, with every beat of that tainted heart hastening his demise.

* * *

_Staring at the sight before him, Byakuya felt his throat tighten, the long-unfamiliar burn of tears begin at the back of his eyes. "Renji..."_

Renji's kosode and shitagi had both been stripped away, leaving his upper body bare in the lantern-light. The entire front of his form was coated in half-dried blood, the marks of Zabimaru's favor invisible beneath the red-black layer.

A pile of bloodstained towels lay in a crumpled heap by Renji's hip, the once-white fabric stained with crimson. The blood had begun to dry at the edges of one of the towels, darkening to a shade of garnet that was nearly a match for Renji's eyes.

Narrowed against the pain, those deep-red eyes where nonetheless clear and aware when they met Byakuya's gaze.

"Byakuya?" Startled, Renji sat up, dislodging the towel that Riko was pressing against his wound and earning himself a glare from Captain Unohana, who was fighting to heal the still-bleeding injury.

"Renji," Byakuya repeated on a shaking exhale, and closed the distance between them with a single Flashstep, dropping to his knees on the steps just below his partner and wrapping his arms unhesitatingly around Renji's waist, nearly numb with the force of the relief crashing through him. The redhead tensed, his hands tentatively brushing the noble's shoulders.

"Byakuya, you'll get blood -"

"I don't _care_," Byakuya answered, his face half-buried against the uninjured side of Renji's chest.

As though the words were all the permission he needed, Renji's arms were suddenly tight around Byakuya's shoulders, pulling the smaller man hard against his body, heedless of the white-hot pain that lanced across his chest and arm at the movement.

"I was afraid y' were still upset wi' me," Renji murmured against the soft black hair, and felt the form in his arms begin trembling in response. Not sobbing - Byakuya would never let himself go enough to cry, not with so many people still surrounding them - but shaking, shaking as though he would fall apart if Renji's arms weren't holding him together.

"Please, Kuchiki-san, we must continue treating Abarai-taichou's wound," Unohana said a few seconds later, her quiet voice oddly urgent, and Byakuya collected himself enough to lift his face from Renji's chest. His cheek was blood-smeared, and the blood felt hot against his skin, rather than the tacky coolness it should have been.

"Why is Renji's wound still bleeding?" Byakuya asked sharply, drawing back enough to get a decent look at the injury in his lover's chest.

Directly over Renji's heart, the wound - as wide across as Byakuya's palm - was deep enough to show a flash of bone, the rib splintered by the force of the blow he'd been dealt.

"There's some kinda kidou on the blade," Renji explained, allowing himself to be pressed back onto the veranda, a fresh towel settled firmly against the injury. He hissed between his teeth at the sudden pressure on his shattered rib, but Byakuya's hand clasping his own made the pain a great deal more bearable. "Bastard was aimin' for my heart. I'm lucky Zabimaru an' Senbonzakura shouted when they did - I moved jus' enough tha' the blade hit m' rib an' deflected. Otherwise it woulda gone in clean."

Stormcloud eyes flickered to Unohana. Even with her head bent and her attention squarely on her patient, she sensed the look and the question behind it. "Had the blade struck true, we would have lost Abarai-taichou in an instant," she said quietly, the soft spring-green glow of her healing kidou slowly burning out the poisonous yellow-green haze of the spell. Meanwhile, the white towel Riko pressed over it continued to turn red, but the pace of the crimson shift had slowed.

"You will be able to heal the wound?" Byakuya asked, fighting to keep the anxiety from his voice, and Unohana smiled faintly as she continued to work.

"The kidou attached to the blade had several effects within it. The first was to seal the reiatsu of its victim, rendering them weaker and less able to fight and heal. The second is the anticoagulant properties," she added, with a faint half-nod to the blood-soaked towels that Byakuya knelt beside. "We are combating both effects, but the combination of them is taking some time to repair."

"...you said a reiatsu seal?" Byakuya repeated slowly, a dull thread of concern worming its way through the overwhelming relief he felt. It certainly explained why Renji had vanished from Byakuya's senses, at least. But if Renji's powers had been locked away, then -

"Yes. The fact that Abarai-taichou's reiatsu has been blocked is part of the reason his healing is delayed." Unohana hesitated, her hands still steady over the wound in Renji's chest. "It is rather strange. For a Shinigami with such exceptionally high natural reiatsu levels as Abarai-taichou, having one's reiatsu blocked so suddenly and so completely would often be fatal. But when he was struck, a second reiatsu imposed itself between Abarai-san and the kidou."

"A second... reiatsu?" Byakuya echoed, feeling like a fool for parroting the woman's words again. "And this reiatsu belonged to -"

"To yourself, Kuchiki-san."

"No," Renji interrupted, before Byakuya could even decide how to react to Unohana's statement. "'Not Byakuya. 's Senbonzakura."

For the briefest of moments, the most experienced Captain and healer in the whole of Seireitei stopped short, genuinely shocked by Renji's words. "I beg your pardon, Abarai-taichou," she began delicately, her eyes wary as they slipped between the two men, "but did you say that Kuchiki-taichou's Zanpakutou is the one who saved you?"

"Yeah. I was meditatin' in the garden... he an' Zabimaru were talkin' t' me. Both of 'em shouted t' warn me jus' before I was attacked," Renji explained, his voice hazy at the edges with the effects of the blood loss. His own heart aching, Byakuya clenched his hand more tightly around Renji's, and the redhead winced slightly, a little more life coming back to his eyes.

"Come t' think of it, they weren' the only ones who yelled..." Renji muttered, his eyes narrowing as they slid over to the woman still holding a bloody towel pressed against his wound. Riko carefully turned her head, her mouth narrowing to a thin line as she continued to hold pressure against the bleeding. "An' they certainly weren't the ones throwin' knives at the guy, either."

Riko grimaced faintly but didn't respond, and Renji flicked his gaze back to Byakuya instead. "Did she pull that little talent outta her ear, or 's she always been able to do that?"

"My grandfather had very firm ideas concerning the safety of members of his house," Byakuya answered calmly. "Everyone, from the blood to the servants, was expected to be able to defend the members of the Clan, as well as themselves, if the situation became dire. Riko, as my mother's companion, was specifically taught the art of knife-throwing as a last-line defense. Without any reiatsu to speak of, she is easily overlooked as a guard. However..." trailing off, he cast the woman a significant look.

A bit sheepishly, Riko lifted one blood-soaked hand from the towel she was pressing to Renji's chest, and carefully turned down the top edge of her obi sash enough to reveal the barest glint of metal hilts. Nestled snugly behind the heavy fabric were five throwing daggers; the sixth of the set was still embedded in the trunk of the tree in the center of the courtyard.

"Huh," Renji muttered vaguely, as Riko let the fabric flip back into place and put both hands back on the towel. "Thanks, Riko-san. Guess I owe ya."

"You do not -"

"I beg your pardon, Abarai-taichou, Riko-san," Unohana interrupted, bringing everyone's attention back to herself. A few surprised looks were cast in the direction of the usually scrupulously-polite woman for being disrespectful enough to interrupt a conversation, but she calmly ignored them. "Renji, you say that you are able to hear and interact with Kuchiki-taichou's Zanpakutou?"

"Renji and I retain the ability to interact with one another's Zanpakutou," Byakuya answered, his eyes growing distant as he let his mind race over familiar lines, seeking out the bright core of Senbonzakura's energy. He'd been so frantic with worry over Renji that it hadn't struck him until now that the last he'd heard from his blade was the shouted warning to Renji...

'_Senbonzakura_?' he called mentally, seeking out that familiar essence and finding... nothing. '_Senbonzakura_!'

Zabimaru's deep voice, as primal as a roll of thunder, caught his attention. _"He is with us, white prince."_

There was a flash, wildly disorienting, of a place Byakuya had never seen before - a trackless forest surrounding a tiny glade, with Zabimaru lying quietly in the grass beneath a restless sky. It took Byakuya a moment to realize the truth of the motionless sprawl of color across the nue's forelegs.

'_Senbonzakura!'_

"_Do not panic, white prince,_" the baboon grumbled, lifting his head until, somehow, his gaze locked on Byakuya's. "_He is drained and weakened, but he is unhurt. He shall recover as our Master recovers._"

Relief, nearly as strong as the relief that had struck him when he'd seen Renji, alive and aware, washed over him. For the past century, the Zanpakutou spirit had been his one constant companion, unwavering as so many others had come and gone in Byakuya's life. '_It was his response that saved Renji_," Byakuya said softly, staring at the too-still form that was being held so carefully by those powerful arms. '_Without his speed...'_

"_We all would have been lost," _nodded the baboon, his alien face grave. _"We are all in his debt."_

"_There is..." _the limp form in Zabimaru's arms shifted slightly, the deep voice weak and weary. "_There is no debt between us, Zabimaru." _A pause, then, with the slightest hint of mischief, _"At least, not until you lose another wager on our sparring matches." _

Both halves of the nue groaned. _"Nice to know you're feeling better,_" the snake contributed, a bit sourly, and Byakuya couldn't help the hint of a smile that tugged at the edges of his mouth. He wasn't certain why, but the easy camaraderie between the two spirits surprised him.

'_Senbonzakura,'_ he called softly, and the samurai shifted carefully in the nue's arms, lifting his head enough to meet his master's eyes. When his blade-spirit's gaze was solidly upon him, Byakuya bowed. Not merely the nod of the head he would have given as an acknowledgement, but a deep, deep bow of gratitude and respect. '_Thank you_.'

Despite still being cradled in the arms of the other spirit, Senbonzakura shifted enough to approximate a bow in response. "_I am but a part of your soul, Byakuya-sama. I would be a poor guardian of it if I did not do all I could to save the rest._"

"_You sshould go back_," the snake informed Byakuya before he could come up with an adequate response. "_The life-mistress waits to speak to you._"

'Life-mistress'? He could only mean Unohana, but it was a rather peculiar address. Although... perhaps the nicknames were merely a habit of Zabimaru's?

Shrugging the matter off for the moment, Byakuya gave a twist of his mind sent him sliding back to his physical body, and he blinked his eyes open to meet Unohana's politely patient stare.

"And you have possessed this ability for... how long, please?" she asked, her tone as delicate as ever, though the faintest edge to the question implied her patience might have been thinning.

"Since our honeymoon," Renji answered, before Byakuya could formulate an appropriately polite and euphemistic reply for 'since the first time we slept together.' Unohana, however, seemed to understand the meaning quite clearly, and simply nodded, her face clearing.

"The two of you must speak to Ukitake-san and Kyouraku-taichou concerning that," she said simply, and returned her attention to her healing.

"Assuming I live that long," Renji muttered. It was probably intended to be a joke, but given the amount of his blood painting the polished wood, none of his audience found it remotely entertaining.

"I can assure you, Abarai-taichou, you need not disparage my abilities," Unohana chided gently, and smiled as Renji began sputtering horrified objections. "I will grant, that the kidou you were struck with is both exceedingly dangerous and highly effective. However, it was not designed with the consideration of a medic of my own abilities in mind. Also, as the kidou is geared towards assassinations, it was never intended to last beyond the space of moments. Do not be concerned, Abarai-taichou. Although you will bear a scar from this encounter, there will be no lasting effects."

"Good t' know," Renji mumbled sleepily, his hand still firm around Byakuya's. " 'd hate t' have t' give up Captaincy 'cause of that idiot."

The sound of a very indignant, if incoherently muffled, exclamation, brought Byakuya's head around. Five members of Soifon's Onmitsukidou and another half-dozen of his own house guard surrounded a bound and bespelled man, on his knees on the blood-spattered ground beneath the tree where both Renji and Byakuya liked to sit for their meditations. A thick, twisted length of black cloth that looked like it had been someone's sleeve had been used to gag him, but the fury radiating from the man's brown eyes spoke volumes.

"That is your would-be assassin?" Byakuya asked softly, and Renji hummed in response.

" 's him aright. Gets better, though. Remember we were lookin' for whoever was supplyin' Michi down in Inuzuri and tellin' him t' lie 'bout the Shinigami?"

Byakuya blinked, startled, and swung his attention back to Renji for a brief moment, before raising his head to seek out Haru and Ko in the lingering crowd. When the two children had still been living in Rukongai, acting as spies for Byakuya, they had reported seeing a brown-haired, brown-eyed, utterly average man dressed in a uniform shihakusho. Both children met his eyes squarely; Ko nodded once, a brisk, short motion. Haru's mouth tightened angrily as he nodded as well, turning his gaze past Byakuya to glare at the bound man.

"Have you learned anything from him?" Byakuya did not address that question to the men guarding the prisoner, but rather over his own shoulder, to where he could feel the two familiar, electric reiatsu approaching, one with the warmth of a summer storm, the other with the edge of a winter's wind.

"We've learned nothing yet," Soifon answered, a razor-edged smile of anticipation on her face and her reiatsu prickling like needles of ice upon his skin.

"However..." her own smile feral, Yoruichi folded her arms beneath her chest as she surveyed the bound man, "an attempt on the life of a Gotei Captain and a noble consort? We'll be learning things soon enough." Lambent-gold eyes flickered back to Byakuya, gleaming with a bloodthirstiness that would have looked more at home in Kenpachi's gaze. "I'm glad I followed you, Bya-bo. I haven't had the pleasure of doing a proper Onmitsukidou interrogation in _far_ too long."

Renji snorted softly, letting his eyes slip closed as Unohana's powers continued knitting together the flesh of his chest. "Yoruichi, you are fuckin' scary."

"And here I thought it was Byakuya who had the silver tongue," the Goddess of Flash teased back, never taking her eyes off of Soifon. The younger woman was throwing another series of binding kidou onto the half-dozen already restraining their prisoner, tightening their hold on him until he could barely blink.

"Take him to the prisoner wagon," Soifon instructed her men when she had finished. As they quickly complied, their Captain turned arctic eyes to Byakuya. "Kuchiki, I would _appreciate_ -" the sarcastic stress on that word was so thick that even Unohana raised an eyebrow, "if you would refrain from manhandling my officers in the future. Tohumi has a broken jaw because you were too damned impatient to wait for him to tell you that Abarai was alive."

"Perhaps," Byakuya replied, his voice taking on the particular smoothness that only appeared when his anger was rising to the surface, "it would benefit everyone to be reminded of a simple fact; it is not wise to stand between myself and what I hold dear." A slow breath, and then, "I leave the assassin to your mercy, Soifon-taichou, but his master will be at _mine_."

* * *

"The bleeding has stopped," Unohana murmured a few minutes later, weary relief plain in her voice. Renji glanced over at her, his expression contrite.

"Unohana-taichou, y' shouldn't have exhausted yourself on my account. There's other healers here who coulda helped -"

"I will recover, Abarai-taichou," she scolded gently, but it didn't escape anyone that she did not immediately rise to her feet. "I could not allow myself to entrust your safety to anyone else. You are far too important for us to lose; the fact that someone has attempted to assassinate you proves that."

"Rather circular logic," Byakuya remarked dryly, still clasping Renji's hand. "Someone is attempting to kill him, so he is too important to die?"

"Precisely," Unohana smiled, her expression dangerously sweet. Byakuya scowled faintly, but held his tongue as the woman turned her gaze back to Renji. "Abarai-taichou, I am directing you to take non-combat duty only for the next ten days -"

"Ten _days_?" Renji squawked in disbelief. "I took on Byakuya's Bankai and I was back on my feet in ten _minutes_!" Byakuya cringed faintly at the reminder - although he did not regret the battle, as it had been necessary for both of them to take the first steps towards their current relationship, remembering that he had come so close to killing the man he loved was still painful.

"Byakuya-san's Bankai," Unohana answered sternly, "damaged your physical body, Abarai-taichou. It did not attack your reiatsu centers, nor did it reduce the coagulant properties of your blood. Until we are certain that the last of the dagger's kidou have been eliminated from your body, I would prefer not to risk you bleeding to death from a nick on the training ground."

"What about bleeding to death from a papercut? Is that really any better?" Renji growled back, sarcasm dripping from the words, but Unohana tilted her head faintly, considering.

"That is a valid point," she conceded, eyes sparkling, and Renji's mouth dropped open in disbelief. "Perhaps it would be safer to relieve you of duty altogether, and confine you to bed rest."

Renji stared at her for a long moment, mouth agape, before he collected himself enough to blurt, "I was _joking_!"

"And I am not," Unohana answered benignly, rising very slowly to her feet. "Ten days off duty, Abarai-taichou. There is to be no blade-work or... overly strenuous physical activity," she finished dryly, glancing towards Byakuya, who ducked his head slightly to hide the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

"Do you have any idea how boring ten days alone in bed is going to be?" Renji muttered, more to himself than to Unohana, but the woman smirked faintly in response.

"I sincerely doubt you will be alone, Abarai-taichou, as Kuchiki-taichou will also be relieved of duty."

"He what?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Unohana's smirk was definite now, self-satisfaction virtually radiating from her as she wiped her hands on a damp towel one of the servants had brought out. "Kuchiki-taichou, my understanding is that your Zanpakutou was severely weakened in defending Abarai-taichou from the attack. I would be remiss in my duties if I were to allow you to remain on the combat rosters with Senbonzakura in such condition. Therefore, I will be removing you from duty for the same ten-day period. You will both be allowed to attend the duties of your Divisions as necessary from here, but I will be leaving instructions with your seated officers that you are not to be allowed in your offices."

A faint wave of snickers had both Renji and Byakuya throwing glares at the assembled peanut gallery; Kira, Shuuhei, and Ichigo had all lingered even after learning that Renji would recover, anxious to see their friend back on his feet. Ichigo - who had arrived moments after Byakuya had - was starting on a truly magnificent black eye, one that was currently turning the left side of his face from hairline to jaw red and faintly purple.

"Shit, Ichigo, who nailed you?" Renji asked, very carefully levering himself into a sitting position with Byakuya's help. The young man grimaced faintly, winced when grimacing shifted the bruised side of his face, then hissed angrily when wincing shifted it worse. Finally, he forced his face into as close to a neutral position as he could manage and tried to only answer out of one side of his mouth.

"Rukia," was the terse answer, and Renji stared at Ichigo for a long moment before giving a minute shake of his head, trying not to invite any more waves of dizziness like the ones that had come with sitting up.

"Rukia? What'd you do t' piss her off so bad?"

Even moving only half of his face, Ichigo managed to approximate his trademark scowl impressively well. "What did I do? Oh, not much, just had to hold her down so that she could be fucking _sedated_, Renji! She felt your reiatsu spike and plummet like that and went absolutely batshit - she thought you were _dead_, you jackass. I had to pin her down long enough for the healers at the Fourth to put her under, and she's going to be pissed as hell at me when she wakes up."

"Prob'ly at both of us," Renji nodded with a sigh, then grimaced and put a hand to his forehead, trying to stop his head from spinning. "Shit. Hate goin' through major blood loss."

"Plenty of fluids, Abarai-taichou," Unohana said firmly, and Renji grunted an acknowledgement rather than nodding again. "In the meantime, I believe a bath and a meal would be beneficial for both of you. We will refrain from waking Kuchiki-fukutaichou until both of you are able to be in attendance."

Byakuya glanced down at himself, realizing with dull surprise that his own kosode was heavy with drying blood, and that Renji's nearly-lost life had once again decorated the windflower silk scarf around his neck.

Renji's own dark-green scarf, Byakuya's gift to him upon his promotion to Captain, lay in a careless heap by the wall where someone - likely Unohana or one of the servants - had dropped it. One end of it was black with dried blood, and a gaping hole showed where the dagger had ripped through it.

Hanging his head slightly, Byakuya exhaled a shaking breath. The scarf could be cleaned and repaired, as his own had been, until only he and Renji would be able to find the reminders of that particular brush with death.

If only his own memories could be washed away so easily. The memories of his own terror, of his own certainty that he had lost the one person who meant so much... if only he could banish those dark recollections and keep only the ones of joy.

But that was unrealistic, he reminded himself, exhaling another slow breath. There was so much more to life than only simple happiness - and simple happiness never lead to changes.

"Renji," he said slowly, turning his attention back to the man before him, painfully aware of the rough-callused hand still held in his own. "Before I... before I fled, you reminded me that I have once again been allowing my past to rule me. My own fear has kept me from giving you something precious, and I do not wish to let it defeat me again." Swallowing hard, Byakuya tried to ignore the shaking in his hands, in his heart, and drew a trembling breath as he leaned in, resting his forehead carefully against Renji's shoulder.

"Renji," he began, fighting back the coiled terror in his stomach, "I -"

His words were cut off before they'd truly begun by callused fingertips pressing themselves gently to his lips. Shocked, Byakuya lifted his head - the hand followed the movement, fingers remaining steady on his mouth - to stare up at Renji, who gazed down upon him with gentle compassion in his eyes.

"I know," Renji said softly, a smile creasing the corners of his eyes. "Senbonzakura told me. So I understand why y' can't say it jus' yet," he explained, letting his hand drop so that he could press a gentle kiss to Byakuya's lips. "An' I know now that you'll tell me when you're ready, when you're comfortable with it, not before. Understand?" The last word was spoken teasingly, but Renji's eyes were serious.

"I -"

"Byakuya-sama!"

"Oh, come on!" Shuuhei objected, as one of the Kuchiki house guards appeared in a flicker of Shunpo, dropping to one knee before the staircase where Byakuya still sat. "They were just getting to the good part!"

Kira backhanded his lover in the stomach; Shuuhei grunted sharply but still grinned, utterly unrepentant, when Renji glared down at him. Byakuya's attention, meanwhile, was focused entirely on his guardsman.

"What news?" the noble demanded shortly, not quite able to keep the irritation off his face as he asked.

"Byakuya-sama, there is a visitor at the gate -"

"Turn them away," he answered shortly, turning back to Renji without a second thought.

"With respect, Byakuya-sama, I do not believe it wise to turn away -"

"Unless it is the Soutaichou himself on urgent business, the matter can be delayed. Turn the visitor away!"

"Oh, I like to think I'm a bit more important than the Soutaichou," chuckled a stranger's voice before the guard could respond. Surprise spun everyone in the garden to face the far roofline where the intruder perched, black robes wavering softly in the light wind. Laughing brown eyes narrowed faintly in the small space revealed by the white veil as the newcomer surveyed the scene below; Renji blood-soaked and swaying where he sat, Byakuya still pale with lingering shock, Ichigo's bruised face furiously defiant.

Cocking her head slightly, the King's Guard asked bemusedly, "Did I come at a bad time?"

* * *

O

* * *

A/N: Okay then! Now that we've all established that no, I am not killing Renji - show of hands please, how many of you thought I actually had? I'm curious - I do feel the need to warn you that there will be a death in upcoming chapters. If no unexpected sequences jump out at me, it should be in chapter 18. It will also not be anyone you will expect. Just so you're forewarned, (looks angelic until her halo slides down and smacks her in the nose)

Translator's Note: When written in Japanese, the 'Bya' in Byakuya's name is the character for 'white.' So Zabimaru's nicknaming him 'White Prince' is something of a pun as well as a nickname, and no, I do not know where Zabimaru got that habit. Quite possibly from Yachiru, although at least his nicknames are a little more refined than hers...

Also... hmm, 149 reviews at posting time? Looks like first reviewer for this chapter gets the kiriban! Rules are the same, no character death (go ahead and laugh...), no bash!fics, PG-15 rating maximum as I am utterly incapable of smut. Previous winners, if you could please sit on your fingers until the kiriban has been claimed, it is highly appreciated, ;-).

Lastly, to all anonymous reviewers - if you have a question to ask me, PLEASE leave a contact in your review or email/Tweet me directly. The Fan frowns on leaving review replies in stories. Thank you!


	17. Terrifying Truths

When you're less than a week in and it's already been a long year, it's not a good sign, is it?

Exceedingly long chapter. Also, warning of character death is pushed off to Chapter 19 or possibly 20 - this one leaves more loose ends than I had anticipated, and I will have to tie a few of those off before I can proceed.

Lastly, who can catch the offhanded movie reference in this chapter?

* * *

BONDS OF HONOR

Chapter 17: Terrifying Truths

* * *

_Cocking her head slightly, the King's Guard asked bemusedly, "Did I come at a bad time?"_

Astonished silence reigned over the courtyard for a split second before the few lingering servants threw themselves to the ground in near-prostrate bows, knees and foreheads pressed against the grass below them. The Kuchiki guards followed their example within a heartbeat.

Still on the veranda, Unohana dipped her head in a respectful acknowledgement, as Byakuya did his best to steady Renji, the latter still dizzy from the loss of blood. Kira and Shuuhei both dropped to one knee, one fist against the ground, the other hand against the hilts of their Zanpakutou, heads respectfully lowered.

For the space of a few brief heartbeats, utter silence reigned over the courtyard, not even the breeze daring to disrupt the odd tableaux. Then, the _shiff-pat_ of a footstep on stone. The faint _clack_ of a blade being shifted in preparation for being drawn, and Ichigo's voice cut through the still air with the force of one of his own Getsuga Tenshou.

"Get up."

Ichigo spoke quietly, but the force of his anger made the words burn. Kira jerked his head around to face the man who had once been his Captain, his eyes wide with astonishment and a touch of worry. "Sir?"

A feral snarl on his face, Ichigo strode around Shuuhei and Kira's kneeling forms, every inch of him radiating furious defiance. "I said, _get up_, all of you. You've got no reason to bow to her." Planting himself squarely before the pair of them, he leveled his glare at the woman. "Why should we bow to an agent of the Spirit King? Why should we respect someone who hid behind our strength? The Spirit King sat back and let us do his goddamned dirty work, fighting Aizen; the way I see it, _she_ should be bowing to _us_."

"Ichigo!" Kira gasped, the touch of worry he'd felt a second ago blossoming into something much deeper and much more visceral. Raising his head, he could see Ichigo's hand white-knuckled on Zangetsu's hilt, taste the low burn of the Visored's Hollow-touched reiatsu starting to rise.

"She's Squad Zero!" Shuuhei hissed, tasting the danger beginning to boil in the still air. "She's one of the King's own guardians, Ichigo. _You don't want to fight her._" The last words were spoken low and urgent, not quite frantic but not far from it.

"Why not?" Although both Shuuhei and Kira kept their heads bowed, it was easy enough to see Ichigo's feet as he walked forward, placing himself before the two of them, facing down the silent Guard. "You think she's stronger than I am?"

When only silence answered him, Ichigo snorted faintly. His reiatsu pulsed, the force of it deep enough to thrum in the very bones. It was a thunderstorm bound by a silken thread, the potential for destruction held back by only the barest of restraint.

"She's only the Spirit King's messenger," he said, his soft voice a startling contrast to the roaring strength of his power. "Her power is nothing next to his own blood."

The silence echoed again, half a heartbeat of terrifying stillness before Shuuhei choked and the servants and guards gasped. The sudden explosion of their whispers sounded like the wings of birds startled into flight. Ichigo glanced over his shoulder at Kira and the astounded Shuuhei, his eyes registering mild amusement somewhere beneath the anger. "You didn't tell him, Kira?"

"It was hardly my place to do so," Kira answered, cautiously lifting his head to regard Ichigo and, beyond him, the robed and veiled woman standing on the opposite roof. "Your blood is your own concern."

Snorting softly, Ichigo turned back to face the Guard. As he moved, the light of the setting sun caught the spun-copper strands of his hair, turning them into a blazing corona around his head. The light poured like liquid gold over the width of his shoulders, highlighting the contours of the muscles there, proof of the strength that he had earned through a war brought upon him too soon.

Everyone who had ever met Kurosaki Ichigo knew that he was someone who _could_ lead, whether or not he wished to do so. He had the strength of body to protect others, the strength of will to guide them, and the strength of heart to know when to let them fight on their own.

Everyone who met Kurosaki Ichigo knew he could lead.

Until that moment, Kira Izuru hadn't realized how willing he was to follow.

"Get up, Kira," Ichigo said softly, and Kira did.

* * *

Even with his gaze still locked on the silent Royal Guard, Ichigo knew the moment Kira's expression changed. He'd shared an office with the man for months, and he had learned to recognize the slight narrowing of those blue eyes, the tightening of his mouth that showed the shift from uneasiness to resolve.

Behind Ichigo, Kira's reiatsu pulsed once, a nervous flicker, then solidified into a steady burn, the metallic taste of it bitter on the back of his tongue. Half a heartbeat, and the biting scent of ozone joined it as Hisagi rose to his feet, stepping forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his partner.

"We don't bow to you," Ichigo said softly, as the others in the courtyard slowly began to rise. The Kuchiki guards moved back to the edges of the courtyard, trying to keep themselves out of the rising tide of Ichigo's reiatsu. The rest - mostly servants, with a handful of others among them - simply fled. Ignoring their exodus, Ichigo continued. "If the King is supposed to be the leader of the Soul Society, then let him lead. Let him stand at the front of his own battles, instead of hiding behind us."

"For once, Kurosaki Ichigo, we are in full agreement." Even without his Captain's haori, it was impossible to deny the force of Byakuya's presence. He crossed the courtyard to where Ichigo stood with slow steps, the razor-edged breeze of his power touching and fanning the weary flames of Renji's own.

His body battered and his reiatsu weak, Renji nonetheless moved on his own two feet, one hand grasping Byakuya's shoulder for balance. When he and Byakuya halted beside Ichigo, Renji flashed a grin at his friends, eyes fierce and face defiant.

Standing amidst the echoing powers of his friends - blood and ozone, cinnamon and sakura - it took Ichigo a moment to feel the fifth power rising from behind them in gentle waves, gradually gaining strength like the tide upon the shore.

The realization had barely processed, though, before those waves strengthened from a gentle pulse to a thunderous surge, overwhelming the reiatsu of the other four Captains with terrifying ease. His eyes wide, Ichigo turned to look at the Captain who had been standing silently behind them the entire time.

"Unohana -"

The woman stepped forward before Ichigo could finish addressing her, a faint smile marking her peaceful face. Her eyes were nearly closed, thoughts hidden behind heavy lids; for a split-second Ichigo was irresistibly reminded of Ichimaru Gin.

"Kurosaki-sama," the woman smiled, bowing slightly in Ichigo's direction. "With your permission, I will return to the Fourth Division and personally take up watch over your wife and children."

"Kuro - sama?" Ichigo sputtered for a moment, disbelieving, before recovering himself and nodding once, the movement sharp. "Thank you, Unohana-taichou."

"It is an honor to serve Kurosaki-sama," came the polite reply, before the woman vanished in a blink of Flashstep. In anyone else, the tone of it might have been called 'smug,' but such a crude term could never be applied to Unohana Retsu's voice.

_Kurosaki-sama._ Unohana, the most powerful Captain in the Gotei aside from Yamamoto himself, had just unequivocally declared her allegiance to Ichigo.

Frowning slightly, Ichigo turned back to the Guard, still watching them silently from her vantage point on the roof. "Look," he began with a sigh, "I don't want to start a war with the Spirit King. We've barely recovered from the war against Aizen, and this is a personal issue for the Kuchiki family and myself. But if it comes down to a fight, they -" he jerked a short nod towards Hisagi and Kira, waved a hand in the direction of the Seireitei where the rest of the Gotei lurked, "are going to take sides. I can't stop that from happening, no matter how much I want to keep them safe and out of our battle. So you've got two choices; you and the King can either negotiate with us, or you can go back and tell him I said to stuff his demands up his -"

"Ichigo!"

" - up his ass," Renji finished, when Ichigo turned to glare at Kira for having interrupted him. Byakuya shot his partner a quelling look; Renji snorted and continued to glower at the Guard, who sighed loudly enough to call attention back to herself.

"Kurosaki Ichigo," the woman sighed, shaking her head slightly behind her heavy veil, "the King is a fool to doubt you."

As disbelief froze the men where they stood, the Guard stepped forward and vanished, flickering off the edge of the roof. She reappeared, crouched silently on one knee, barely an arms' length in front of Ichigo, one hand on the hilt of her sword.

"The King is so concerned, now, with declaring an heir to his throne," the woman chuckled softly, a biting bitterness behind the laughter. "And yet here stands one worthy to take it, a leader ready-made and battle-proven, and all he can see is the flaws. He should be fighting to put you on the throne, not keep you from it."

"I'm nobody's ruler, dammit," Ichigo snarled back, stepping instinctively away from the woman, but Kira and Byakuya's hands caught him beneath the shoulderblades, pressing him back into place.

"He who has no wish to rule is the only one worthy of doing so," the woman countered, but Ichigo was shaking his head, his expression broken.

"No," he answered, his voice dropping away from the razor-edge it had held a moment before. "No. The King... as much as I don't agree with him, he's right about one thing. The Hollow in me... Here in Seireitei, home in Karakura, there are people who know me, know who and what I am, and I know they'll do whatever is necessary if I begin to fall."

The icy edge within his reiatsu had begun to surge even before he raised his hand in the air, drew down curled fingers that left streaks of black light across his face for an instant, before they spread and coalesced into a mask, bone-white with ragged streaks of crimson.

Hisagi and Kira both flinched, but to their credit, did not pull away. Neither of them had ever been so close to Ichigo's Visored mask and the dark surge of energy that marked it, but they held their ground admirably despite that.

"This," Ichigo said, his voice echoing behind the shell of bloodstained bone, "is why the King fights to keep me away. And he's right to do it." A wave of his hand banished the mask in a heartbeat, but his eyes remained black-ringed gold as they locked on the Guard's gaze. "If I took the throne, I wouldn't sit back and let everyone else protect me, like he does. I would be out on the front lines, fighting to protect everyone else. And when I have to use my Hollow..." trailing off, he shook his head. "It makes me lose my mind. I nearly killed one of my best friends when I was behind that mask."

He blinked twice, slowly, the black receding from his eyes. "I'll say it again; I'm nobody's ruler."

"Perhaps not," the woman conceded, after a long pause. "But you are still a leader, one worthy of following." Shifting her position to kneel before him, she withdrew her still-sheathed Zanpakutou from her belt. Gripping it in both hands, she raised it above her head, offering it to the man before her. "Kurosaki Ichigo, honored prince of the Spirit Realm, I offer you my service and protection as a Guardian of the Royal Family and the Spirit Throne."

His mouth already open to tell her exactly what she could do with her offer of protection, Ichigo was interrupted before he could speak by Zangetsu's voice.

"_Accept her offer, Ichigo._"

'_But I don't want -_'

"_What you want is immaterial. We will need an ally in the King's Court, and we are unlikely to find a greater one. Accept her offer._"

Ichigo's immediate thought was 'who died and made you king?', but given the nature of their current problems, it was probably not the best retort. Squashing the instinctive sarcasm beneath several years of hard-learned tact, Ichigo stepped forward and wrapped his hand around the offered blade.

"I, Kurosaki Ichigo, agent of the Gotei and descendent of the Spirit King, accept your service and protection."

* * *

"So..." Renji drawled after a long moment, "why exactly are you here? I mean, other than offerin' your... services... to Ichigo?" Exhausted though he might have been, Renji still managed to muster up the energy for a good leer.

"Renji!"

"Honestly, Izuru, after everything we've done together, you really shouldn't still be such a prude."

"_Shuuhei_!"

Renji snickered, Ichigo shook his head, and Byakuya bit the inside of his cheek to suppress a smile. Really, this was neither the time nor the place for making such crude insinuations, but it lightened the atmosphere of the courtyard considerably, so he really couldn't find it in himself to complain.

Apparently, neither could the Guard, if the faint chuckles from behind her veil were anything to judge by. "Your attitude is rather refreshing, Abarai-taichou. It's nice to meet a man who doesn't lose his sense of humor with half the blood in his body."

"I've had practice," Renji snorted in response. Byakuya couldn't quite hide his wince, but nobody else seemed to notice. "So?"

"The reason I am here..." pushing up off her knees, the woman stowed her Zanpakutou back in her belt and gave her hakama a quick shake, knocking off the few particles of clinging dirt and resettling the pleats, "is because I have been authorized to negotiate an agreement with Kurosaki Ichigo and the Kuchiki family over the futures of Kurosaki-san's children."

Utter silence reigned.

Too shocked to respond, all five men simply stared at her, mouths agape - if only slightly in Byakuya's case - until a deep voice cut across the courtyard from behind them.

"I was not aware the Spirit King was in the habit of negotiating with anyone, Kirio."

"Ginrei!" The curve of her eyes betraying her smile, the Guard gave a bark of delighted laughter at the sight of Byakuya's grandfather, slowly descending the steps from the veranda. "I didn't realize you were still in Seireitei."

"I was not," the old man answered mildly, crossing the ground with measured steps to stand beside Byakuya and Renji, waving off Kira and Shuuhei's bows as he did so. "My aide was somewhat remiss in informing me of recent events. I set out as soon as I heard the news, and was midway through my return to the city when I felt Renji's reiatsu vanish." Kuchiki restraint did not allow the man to pant for breath, although he probably wanted to, but all the restraint in the world couldn't prevent the sweat of exertion forming along his hairline. Not surprising; depending on one's Shunpo speeds, Seireitei was anywhere from two to four hours from Ginrei's estate, and he'd clearly made the journey at much closer to the two-hour mark.

"The house guards informed me that there was something of a disturbance earlier?" A mild quirk of the heavy brows in Renji's direction garnered him a cautious shrug from the red-haired man.

"Assassin," Renji replied succinctly, wincing faintly when even the careful shrug pulled on the aching muscles of his chest. "Yoruichi and Soifon've got him; I almost pity the poor fucker."

Several snorts answered this, but Ginrei merely nodded and returned his attention to the Guard. "And what is it that has brought our noble King to the point of negotiations, rather than demands?"

"Your grandsons are actually the ones responsible. When they sent Tu running back to the King with his tail between his legs," - the faint smirk audible in the woman's tone suggested that Tu was the only one who had not appreciated the incident - "His Highness thought that negotiations might serve us better than an all-out feud with the first of the Noble Houses." Hesitating briefly, she shifted her weight a time or two before adding softly, "Losing his daughter to his own rigidity has made him a wiser being, I believe, if somewhat later than was best. We were sorry to learn of her death."

Ichigo paled, a wild mixture of emotions flashing across his face; fury, anguish, guilt, and something entirely too akin to hatred. Before he could voice any of it, however, Ginrei stepped forward, raising one hand in Ichigo's direction to keep him silent.

"In that case, there is much to be discussed. I believe young Kurosaki-san and I are capable of entertaining you until my Byakuya and Renji have availed themselves of the bathing chambers," he said, rather pointedly, and the two glanced down at themselves as though only just remembering they were both covered in drying blood. "If Kira-taichou and Hisagi-taichou would not object to informing the remainder of the Gotei that reports of Abarai-taichou's death are wholly inaccurate...?"

As delicate as the dismissal was, neither man was obtuse enough to miss it. Bowing in perfect unison, they straightened, saluted, and vanished in simultaneous Flashsteps. Byakuya, meanwhile, nodded politely to his grandfather, took a careful grip on Renji's elbow, and steered his partner off to the baths.

* * *

A gentle silence hung between the two men as the entered Byakuya's private bath chamber. With no few winces on Renji's part, they stripped out of their blood-drenched clothes, leaving them in a crumpled heap on the tiled floor. Wordlessly, Renji dropped down to sit on one of the polished benches, and Byakuya retrieved a water jar to begin scrubbing the blood from his partner's skin.

Both men were thoroughly washed and already immersed in the soaking pool before Byakuya spoke.

"I nearly lost you."

"Mmh?" Renji, half-dozing against the edge of the pool, letting the mineral-laden waters work their small magic on his injury, lifted his head and blinked slowly at Byakuya. "Nah," he answered slowly, "s'gonna take a lot more 'n some knife-weildin' maniac t' kill me."

"No," Byakuya answered hollowly. "It won't."

The blank, broken tone of his voice dragged Renji out of his drowsy state, opening his eyes and pulling him upright, rather than slumped against the side of the pool. "Byakuya?"

"Don't you see, Renji?" the noble continued, fine tremors running up his arms and shoulders until the water around him rippled around him. One hand, shaking almost violently, rose from the water to settle over the angry scar over Renji's heart. "One knife-wielding maniac nearly _did_ kill you. Riko, Senbonzakura, Unohana; if any one of them had been a moment slower, a degree less competent, I would have lost you. _I would have lost you_."

Rough-callused hands reached out, catching the pale, shaking shoulders in a bruising grasp. "Byakuya, listen to me, dammit. You are never going to lose me, not for good! If one of us dies in this life, I'll find you again in the next life, and the next, and the next! I've worked too damned hard to get you; I'm sure as hell not gonna let you go now!" His eyes and voice gentling, Renji slid one hand down Byakuya's chest to settle over his heart, mimicking the other man's position. "I swear it, Kuchiki Byakuya. I will love you through this lifetime and every one that is given to me."

Some time later, Byakuya would wryly remark that, given everything he and Renji had already been through, they should have both expected the flash-burst of reiatsu that knocked them both unconscious.

* * *

Slouched on a floor pillow, Ichigo kept a wary eye on the Guard sitting at the opposite end of the table, directly across from Ginrei. The former Kuchiki Clan head had been talking fairly animatedly to the veiled woman since they'd entered the house, much to Ichigo's bewilderment. It was obvious enough that the two knew each other - the Guard, Kirio, was the only person Ichigo had ever heard refer to Ginrei only by his given name.

Quite frankly, Ichigo thought he'd displayed exceptional patience in waiting over twenty minutes before he burst out, "Lady, who _are_ you, anyway?"

Ginrei - interrupted in the middle of describing the incident with the fireworks at Rukia and Ichigo's formal wedding - raised an eyebrow at his grandson-in-law, who steadfastly refused to blush at the scrutiny. The Guard, however, took pity on the young man.

"My name is Hikifune Kirio -"

"Hikifune?" Ichigo interrupted instantly, his eyes wide. "The former Squad Twelve Captain?"

"Yes," came the bemused response. "I'm surprised you recognized my name, though. Those of us who go on to Squad Zero are generally not spoken of after our promotions."

Ichigo nodded faintly as he settled back on his cushion, his expression guarded. "Shinji mentioned your name, once."

"Ah, Hirako," Hikifune sighed, nodding her understanding. "A brilliant Captain, if a tad dense at times. I was sorry to hear about the trouble he and the others went through. Remembering that you trained with them, though, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you knew of me. Never in my life have I met a man with a greater taste for gossip than Hirako. The Women's Association granted him an honorary membership because of that little proclivity."

Ichigo snorted. "Sure, but did he actually attend the meet - what the hell?"

Ginrei barely blinked at the spiking surge of reiatsu from the direction of Byakuya's quarters. Lowering both his gaze and one hand to the hilt of the Zanpakutou at his waist, he let his eyes go vacant for a long moment as he spoke to the spirit within.

When he blinked back to himself and the two expectant gazes on him, he merely shrugged and reached for his teacup. "My grandsons will join us shortly. They are merely working out a few details of their relationship."

Ichigo choked. Hikifune snickered. Ginrei sighed faintly and poured himself another cup of tea. This was going to be a _very_ long night.

* * *

"What the _fuck_?" Sputtering and coughing, Renji scrambled back above water and kicked over to the edge of the pool. Byakuya - who had apparently fallen against the rim of the pool if the rapidly-swelling lump on his temple was any indication - shrugged faintly in response and reached for the towels.

Jerking the white cloth around his waist, Renji sloshed his way out of the bath and stomped across the tile to the wooden rack where Senbonzakura and Zabimaru's katana forms rested, planted his hands on his hips, and bellowed at them from a distance of inches. "What the hell were you thinking, doin' that while we were in the baths? Don't we have enough people tryin' to kill us already without the two of you fucking drowning us?"

"_We... apologize," _Senbonzakura answered quickly. (Zabimaru's tail piped an indignant "_We do nothing of the sort!_" but was duly ignored.) "_We did not realize the reaction would be so powerful._"

"Reaction to what, exactly?" Byakuya, a towel wrapped around his own waist, moved up beside Renji to glare down at the swords. Both men were perfectly capable of seeing the spirits within them exchange glances; Senbonzakura's mask firmly in place, Zabimaru's faces unreadable.

"And whaddya mean, ya didn't realize it would be so powerful'? Weren't you the ones causin' the reaction?" Renji demanded, one foot tapping impatiently as the two Zanpakutou exchanged further glances, Senbonzakura shrugging and Zabimaru rubbing his head with one front paw.

"_No_," the samurai finally answered. "_As with the previous bond, we are not the cause of the reaction, merely the conductors."_

"Previous bond?" Byakuya echoed, head tilting and eyes unfocused as he surveyed the two spirits. "You are referring to the bond which enables Renji and I to speak to both of you?"

"_How many more bonds do you two want?_" the snake groused, earning itself what was likely a glare from Senbonzakura, although it was impossible to tell behind the mask.

"And this bond will do what, exactly?" Byakuya pressed, his eyes narrowing when the spirits exchanged long glances yet again.

"_Oh_," Senbonzakura murmured suddenly, his head lifting. "_Sode no Shirayuki-san is asking what has happened - excuse me, please..._"

"_And Hozukimaru wishes to spar_," Zabimaru added, rising to his feet in a movement far faster than a creature his size should have managed.

"_We'll be back after we've kicked his tail_," the snake chortled, as the nue half-turned in place and abruptly vanished. Senbonzakura followed suit, dissolving into a wave of cherry blossoms and sweeping out of sight.

"Hozukimaru's got a tail? Hey, wait a second! Get back here, you two!"

"Senbonzakura, I demand that you return at once!"

It was useless. The two spirits had quite thoroughly vanished from their wielder's respective head spaces, blocking the telepathic links that kept them in constant communication. It wouldn't stop them from hearing their bearer's thoughts, but it would effectively prevent any questions from being asked.

"Well, that was fucking..."

Byakuya, who had leaned forward to retrieve Senbonzakura from the rack, glanced back at Renji with a raised eyebrow as the other trailed off. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Renji answered, sounding bewildered. "Just... look." Reaching out slowly, he brushed his fingertips against Byakuya's chest, over the man's heart. "Look."

Bewildered, Byakuya glanced down, and almost immediately felt a disbelieving gasp rise out of his throat.

Tattooed on the pale skin of his chest, directly over his heart, were two jagged black marks like crossed lightning bolts, in the same bold tribal style as the marks adorning so much of Renji's body. "Zabimaru -"

"Heh. That's not all," Renji grinned, glancing down at his own chest. Byakuya followed his eyes, already knowing what he would find. He was not disappointed; the vicious scar over Renji's heart was nearly hidden by a twining silver cherry tree.

* * *

"Where the hell have you two been?" Ichigo demanded as Byakuya and Renji entered the room ten minutes later. "And for that matter, what the hell is Zabimaru doing to Zangetsu?"

"They're sparring," Renji grunted, ignoring the first question as he dropped onto a cushion next to the younger man. "Or at least that's what Zabimaru said. F'r all I know, they're -"

"Never mind, I don't want to know!"

"Chicken."

"Beats an ape."

"By whose standards?"

As the pair continued to bicker, Byakuya took a seat next to his grandfather and met the level gaze of the Guard across the table. Ginrei nodded a greeting to him, and the woman smiled faintly, the corners of her eyes creasing behind her veil.

"You're both looking much better, Byakuya."

Both he and Renji had dressed in plain shihakusho - Renji's haori was irretrievably damaged by the blood soaked in it, and Byakuya's was likely still back at the Shoten. Both of them were still damp-haired after their bath, although Renji had taken the time to braid his. Byakuya, not having the patience to reweave his kenseikan, had merely bound his hair back in a tail low on the back of his neck.

Glancing down the table at Renji - who was attempting to put Ichigo in a headlock as the other squirmed away, cursing - Byakuya couldn't quite hide his smile. Somewhere in the process of forming the newest bond - the effects of which their Zanpakutou had not yet been coerced into explaining - both Renji and Senbonzakura had both regained a good measure of their strength.

"Thank you, Hikifune-taichou."

"Ah, you recognized me! I'm impressed, Byakuya, it's been quite a while," the woman laughed, prompting a faint, almost indulgent smile from Ginrei as well.

"Your mannerisms have changed very little, Kirio-san. And you were not an infrequent visitor to the Manor before your promotion."

"True enough," the woman laughed, as Ichigo and Renji's squabble wound down and the pair resettled themselves, quietly switching places so that Renji could sit next to Byakuya. "In the interest of peaceful negotiations, the King thought he might be well-suited sending someone who was a little better-acquainted with those involved. Although I can see time has not stood still in my absence, of course. You were still a child last time I saw you."

Ichigo snorted. "What, you expected to come back to the same Seireitei that you left a century ago? You said you knew about the War; wasn't it obvious that things would have changed?"

"Intellectually, perhaps," Hikifune smiled, her eyes sad. "But in your heart, do you ever really expect your home to change?" When Ichigo fell silent, she sighed and shook her head slightly. "But the old proverb is true; time waits for no man, not even the Spirit King. No matter how desperately he may wish it were so..."

"Desperate?" Ichigo repeated, leaning forward slightly. "Why? Why is he so anxious about all this now?"

"Because," Hikifune answered simply, "he's dying."

* * *

"_Dying_?" Ichigo echoed incredulously, his voice echoing in the horrorstruck silence. "How is that possible? He's immortal!"

"The Spirit King is much the same as any other being," Hikifune answered with an eloquent shrug. "He is born with a finite amount of energy allotted to his life. When that energy is finished, he dies. The difference is, he has a great deal more energy than all other beings. However, he is not truly immortal. That's just propaganda to scare the Hollows."

"To scare the -" as disbelief and fury drove Ichigo into incoherence, Renji finally found his tongue again.

"The King of the Soul Society is dying?" he repeated softly, and blew out a breath at Hikifune's firm nod. "How long does he have?"

"A century, give or take a decade or two. Not much more than a human lifetime, in the end."

"That's why he's so desperate for my children?" Ichigo whispered softly, his eyes fixed blankly on the tabletop. "Not just to serve as Heir, but to become the ruler of the Soul Society?"

"Yes," came the weary reply. "Ordinarily, the Heir would be one raised and groomed from birth, often for a span of centuries or even millennia, to be considered suitably prepared to take the position."

Ichigo snorted. "Bet even if I wasn't a Visored, he wouldn't have me. I'm too damned stubborn to be 'groomed' for a position like that."

"What I don't understand," Renji put in, a deep frown etching his features, "is why, after Ichigo's mom took off, he didn't select a different Heir?"

"That could well play a part in his decision," Hikifune granted Ichigo with a nod. "And, Abarai, the Heir must be of the Spirit King's bloodline. Although it would be simpler if he could mimic the actions of the Noble Houses in adopting a suitable successor, his blood must be present in the one who assumes the crown."

Blowing out a heavy sigh, Ichigo rocked backwards on his cushion, letting his head fall backwards. Staring up at the ceiling, he swayed in place for a few minutes before dropping his gaze back to the Royal Guard. He could still hear Urahara's words from after his battle with Aizen ringing in his mind, how the Spirit King was the lynchpin that kept the Soul Society from falling apart. There was no way, now, that he could deny the King's demand. "It has to be my children, doesn't it?"

"Masaki was the King's only child. There are no other options that we may pursue."

Dropping his head into his hands, Ichigo drew a deep breath and let it out, his shoulders trembling. "Can I ask... I don't want to just give them up!"

"That is why I am here, Kurosaki-san. As I said, the King himself authorized me to negotiate with you concerning your children's futures."

"Twenty years," Ichigo whispered into his hands, the words barely audible. "Twenty years. Give Rukia and I enough time to raise them. To watch them grow up. Just give us that time."

After a moment of consideration, the woman nodded slowly. "Two decades will not be overmuch. But while you have your children, Kurosaki, teach them. Teach them everything that you have learned - and pray that it will be enough."

* * *

A short while later, Renji dropped out of Shunpo at the gates of the Fifth Division grounds. Hikifune had been seen off shortly after the agreement was reached, warning Ichigo that she would not be the last of the King's Guard he would see. Ichigo's response wasn't one Renji would have addressed to a woman, regardless of how angry he was; Rukia had beaten too many manners into him over the years.

Rukia. Sighing, Renji waved a hand at his gate-guards - both of whom were gawping at him like he'd sprouted a second head somewhere between the manor and the Division grounds - and marched inside. He, Byakuya, and Ichigo were all headed down to the Fourth Division to retrieve Rukia and the new twins, but Renji and Byakuya had thought that it might be best to stop at their respective Divisions first, just to check in with their officers.

Probably just as well, Renji thought, as he opened the door to the administrative building and found a good twenty officers clustered in front of the door of his office.

"Oy! Why're you all cloggin' up the hallway?"

"_CAPTAIN_!" Over a dozen voices echoed the relieved chorus as Renji stepped into view. Snickering softly, he raised his hand to ward off the flood of half-frantic questions from his subordinates.

"I'm alive, everybody. Didn't Hisagi an' Kira come around and tell you?"

Rikichi, his eyes damp, was at the forefront of the group, darted a few steps forward to throw his arms around Renji's waist in a fast hug before dancing backwards again, looking embarrassed. "They did, sir, yes, but, well, we hadn't felt your reiatsu since it spiked, and they couldn't tell us what happened or when you'd return, and, well..."

"We weren't sure if we were to expect you back at all," Minori snapped, poking her head out around the office door. "Particularly given that both Captains Unohana and Soifon were called up to the manor."

Renji laughed softly, ruffled Rikichi's hair and stepped forward to clap Minori on the shoulder. "Y' honestly thought I was gonna die on ya? C'mon, guys, y' should have more faith in me than that by now."

"Faith is for people too weak for skepticism," Minori countered, but the relief was as clear in her eyes as it was in everyone else's.

"Cynic," Renji grinned back, and Minori huffed at him in a manner entirely too reminiscent of her half-sister Nanao.

"Realist," she countered. "Hisagi-taichou said you were on medical leave?"

"Only for ten days, an' I can deal with administrative crap from th' manor."

"Good to know," Minori answered, clearly barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the term 'administrative crap.' "Captain, I'd like to ask a favor of you. When you're back on duty, I'd like to spar. Full shikai."

"Oh?" Renji's eyebrows shot up. "You an' Kurotora feelin' like gettin' your asses kicked?"

"Not quite. More that right at the moment I'm so furious at you for putting us through that panic that I'm quite willing to kill you myself," she answered, a faint grin finally edging its way onto her face.

Renji burst out laughing. "I'll warn the guards," he snickered, clapped her on the shoulder again, and waved to the assembled group. "Gotta go retrieve Rukia from the Fourth's tender care, an' then I'll be back at the manor, obeyin' doctor's orders to avoid paper-cuts. I'll see ya in ten days!"

As he marched out, he heard his tenth seat murmur an utterly bewildered 'Paper cuts?'

* * *

The gentle glow of Unohana's kidou surrounded Rukia's silent form for a moment, making her entire body glow before slowly vanishing into her skin. For a heartbeat, there was only silence - and then violet eyes snapped open.

Rukia's wide gaze flickered over Ichigo's face, past Byakuya at the foot of her bed, and finally settled on Renji, standing across from Ichigo on the other side of her bed. "Renji!" she gasped, sitting bolt-upright in a flurry of linens. "You're alive!"

"A' course I'm alive," Renji snorted back. "Ya honestly think I'm gonna die that easy?"

Rukia flinched back for a split-second, an indefinable pain flashing across her eyes, then clenched her teeth and drew back her fist with the clear intention of planting it squarely in Renji's jaw.

White fingers caught her wrist in a steely grasp as her hand reached the apex of its swing.

"Nii-sama?"

Ichigo blinked, glancing between the head and foot of the bed in bewilderment. Byakuya was suddenly standing on his left, by Rukia's shoulders, one hand wrapped around her wrist, when a second ago he'd been waiting silently at the foot of the bed, far off to Ichigo's right.

"Some Shunpo," Ichigo muttered, before reaching out to prod Rukia's ticklish ribs. "Hey. Take it easy on Renji, would you? He's been mostly dead all afternoon."

"Ichigo, what a horrible thing to say!"

"It's... ah, never mind," he muttered, rummaging one of Rukia's yukata out of the bag he'd brought along. "Here," he chided, tossing it in her face. "Get dressed while I go talk to Unohana about bringing the kids' stuff up to the manor. You've got a lot to catch up on."

"Why," Rukia muttered, watching with narrowed eyes as her husband fled the room, "do I feel like that is an understatement?"

* * *

"I've got a bad feelin' about this."

"Huh? Why?" Ichigo blinked, lowering his teacup to stare at his brother-in-law across the table. "Everything's fine. You survived. The Spirit King gave into our demands. I think the most danger we're in right now is probably from Rukia."

"You think right," the diminutive woman growled from the foot of the small table, eyes narrowed as she glared at her husband and brother. "I'm at the Fourth for less than three days, and what happens? You," a delicate finger is jabbed in Renji's direction, causing the redhead to flinch backwards out of sheer instinct, "are nearly assassinated, and _you_," the accusing finger swung around to halt a quarter of an inch from Ichigo's nose, causing the young man to go momentarily cross-eyed, "nearly start a war with the Spirit King! I can't leave you alone for a minute!"

"Agreed," Byakuya sighed from the other end of the table, which left Renji and Ichigo gaping in astonishment and Rukia looking insufferably smug.

"We're _fine_," Ichigo snapped again, waving his unoccupied hand to encompass the entirety of the group surrounding the table. Ginrei arched his eyebrows, Byakuya frowned, and Renji and Rukia shook their heads.

"By the skin of your teeth, maybe," Rukia countered, and Renji slapped a palm down on the table emphatically enough to make everyone jump.

"That's my _point_!" the redhead exclaimed, as Ichigo cursed softly and grabbed a napkin to blot at the tea in his lap. "We got lucky, all of us. I should be dead right now. Hell, _all_ of us should be dead for darin' to challenge the Spirit King. But we're here."

Ichigo shrugged slightly, nodding his thanks to Rukia as she refreshed his tea. "Like you said, we got lucky. So what's with the bad feeling?"

"It's just..." frowning, Renji shook his head slightly. "Can't help thinkin' our luck's gonna run out."

* * *

There was only a partial moon in the sky, but the weak light it shed was enough for him to see by. Despite the pain of the wounds those two bitches had inflicted on him, he could still walk. He knew enough woodcraft to hide himself in the forests surrounding Rukongai until he could heal from the interrogation they had submitted him to.

And once he had healed, he could seek out his Master again, and beg his forgiveness for failing at the task he had been given.

With thoughts of his Master to give him strength, Tsutomu pushed his abused body into a run, destined for Rukongai.


	18. Soul and Steel

A/N: Gah...

Translator's Notes:

Kiku: female name meaning 'chrysanthemum.'

Daisho - lit. 'big-little,' a Japanese term referring to a pair of swords, usually a full-length katana and a short wakizashi. Kyouraku's Katen Kyoukotsu is considered a daisho sword pair.

_The_ _Art of War_ is a famous book by Sun Tzu, a military strategist in ancient China, and is considered to be the definitive guide to military and combat strategies. It is also often applied in modern business situations.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 18: Soul and Steel

* * *

It felt strange, doing nothing.

Still, he could not deny there was a certain pleasure in playing at indolence. The late morning sun was a gentle weight against his body, and a light breeze danced across the grounds, carrying the scent of blossoms and toying with the pages of his book. Admittedly, Byakuya thought, stretching his legs out a bit more and nestling himself a little deeper into the blanket spread across the grass, _The Art of War_ was not something most people would have chosen for recreational reading, but even he could not surrender himself totally to lethargy.

All in all, Unohana's so-smugly ordered medical leave was turning out to be a great deal more enjoyable than he anticipated. At the moment, he was feeling utterly content and quite disinclined to move.

At least, until the surface beneath his head shifted.

His face blank, Byakuya flicked his eyes upward to meet Renji's faintly apologetic gaze. "Is something wrong?"

"Nah, m' leg was just starting to tingle." Renji shifted again, carefully, the heavy muscles of his thigh tensing and relaxing against the back of Byakuya's neck. He seemed... agitated. Where Byakuya had accepted the enforced idleness with resigned calm that had eventually segued to enjoyment, Renji had been pacing like a caged tiger for the last few days. The only points at which he seemed to relax were times like these, when Byakuya let the stillness drift into a quiet intimacy that they could both enjoy.

As disinclined as the noble was to leave his comfortable position, the thought that he might be putting Renji's leg to sleep undermined his enjoyment slightly. "I can move," he began, raising his head slightly, but a firm hand on his shoulder halted the motion before it began.

"Don't. I like ya where you are." The teasing grin bordered on lascivious; not precisely appropriate, as Byakuya's head was resting closer to Renji's knee than his groin, but it was, in its own way, still appreciated. Byakuya always delighted in the heat he could raise in Renji's eyes with a mere glance, a single whisper of his partner's name. Renji was a sensual being by nature, something the affection-starved noble had long since grown to appreciate.

Returning a faint echo of the broad grin, Byakuya shifted his head a little higher on Renji's leg and turned his attention back to his book. Renji - his other leg drawn up so that he could prop the report he was reading against his unoccupied thigh - slid his hand from where it rested on Byakuya's shoulder, gliding it across his chest until he touched the bare skin exposed by the collar of the noble's lavender yukata.

The strong fingers, rough with calluses but stunningly gentle against the fragile skin, stroked gently at the base of Byakuya's throat for a moment before sliding into the gap of the fabric. Renji's palm settled naturally over Byakuya's heart, hard skin warm against the jagged black marks Zabimaru had left on the noble's chest.

After a moment, Renji's thumb began tracing absently back and forth, back and forth, over the skin below Byakuya's collarbone. Ticklish at first, the rhythmic motion soon became soothing, and Byakuya felt his eyelids sinking without his permission.

After a few minutes, Renji glanced down and paused in his motions, his thumb stilling against Byakuya's silken skin. The noble had fallen asleep, his face softened and his breathing steady, head still pillowed on Renji's thigh. The copy of Sun Tzu in his hands had fallen forward onto his stomach, and was beginning to slip sideways.

Very gently, Renji set his own report down, then reached across his partner's body to pluck the thin volume from unresisting hands. Settling it down on the blanket by Byakuya's shoulder, Renji stifled a faint yawn as he glanced up, gauging the position of the sun. They had a few hours before lunch was ready... no harm in him getting in a few more minutes of rest as well.

Settling his back a little more comfortably against the sun-warmed stone he was leaning against, Renji let the gentle warmth of the day lull him to sleep, his hand still resting over Byakuya's heart.

* * *

The sound of timid footsteps nearby was enough to snap Renji from his light doze an hour or so later, instincts he had honed in Rukongai reasserting themselves with a vengeance after the assassin's attack. The decades in the Gotei had fortunately tempered his immediate reaction; rather than wake up swinging, which would have no doubt irritated the still-sleeping Byakuya, he pulled himself into alertness and began assessing. Slitting an eye open, he turned his head enough to see one of the lower servants standing a few paces away, wringing her hands nervously as she regarded them.

Without even trying, Renji could also feel the reiatsu of at least a half-dozen house guards within close range. Although Byakuya had not said a word of it to him, Renji was perfectly well aware that the guards on duty when the assassin had attacked him had been punished severely. Byakuya was not a man who tolerated threats to the safety of what was his.

In the end, the protective detail on both Renji and Byakuya was doubled when they were at the manor, and the normally complacent guard force had been brought to nearly hair-trigger reactiveness.

The servants, wary of the reactions of both their masters and the guards, kept a wary distance from the two men whenever possible. This was particularly true of the younger and lower-ranked servants, and the girl facing him was both.

"Y' need us, Kiku?" Renji asked softly, trying not to either startle the girl or awaken Byakuya.

"Ah, yes, Renji-sama," the girl whispered back in obvious relief, her eyes flickering worriedly between the quietly alert Renji and the still-sleeping Byakuya. "Captains Ukitake and Kyouraku are at the front gates, requesting admission for a meeting with yourself and Byakuya-sama..."

"Show them in," came the quiet murmur from Renji's lap. The redhead barely restrained himself from jumping; Kiku, on the other hand, squeaked and leapt backwards a pace, one hand flying to her mouth in surprise. Blinking his eyes open, Byakuya lifted his head enough to glance at the girl. "They contacted me in regards to a meeting earlier today. Please escort them here and see that cushions and tea are brought out, then send orders that we are not to be disturbed."

"Y-yes, right away, Byakuya-sama!" the girl squeaked, attempting to back away and bow simultaneously and nearly tripping over the hem of her yukata. Blushing brilliantly, she gathered the skirt up enough to prevent a repeat stumble, turned, and fled.

Byakuya snorted softly and settled his head back against Renji's thigh. "Starstruck," he murmured, and Renji chuckled softly in agreement, slowly slipping his hand from Byakuya's yukata, tracing gentle lines across the pale skin of the noble's chest.

He expected Byakuya to sit up again, to shift from the stunningly intimate position he had carelessly allowed the servants and guards to witness, particularly as he could feel the intertwined reiatsu of Kyouraku and Ukitake already beginning to approach them from the gate. However, Byakuya did nothing of the sort; if anything, he seemed to be relaxing more heavily into Renji's lap.

A bit bewildered, Renji stared down at Byakuya's head, the kenseikan noticeably absent from the black hair. "Uh, Byakuya?"

"If you are comfortable, I have no intentions of moving."

" 'm perfectly comfortable, but I thought..." Somewhat at a loss for words, Renji gestured loosely in the direction of the approaching reiatsu. Byakuya, barely moving his head, rolled his eyes up enough to meet Renji's gaze.

"There are two people in the entirety of the Soul Society with whom I do not concern myself with propriety. You are one of them; Jyuushiro-sensei is the other."

Understandable, Renji supposed, given that the man was closer to being Byakuya's uncle, or perhaps even father, than most anyone who actually shared Kuchiki blood had ever hoped to be. "Kyouraku..."

"Will not risk Ukitake's displeasure with indiscreet words," Byakuya finished smoothly, as a trio of servants appeared with a second blanket and a pair of heavy floor pillows from within the manor. Trailing behind them, another group of servants bore a small table and a very complete tea service. "Be at ease, Renji."

Shrugging slightly, Renji could only bow to his partner's experience. Byakuya had known Ukitake for far longer than he had, after all.

* * *

Neither Ukitake nor Kyouraku expressed the faintest degree of surprise when they rounded the corner of the manor and saw the intimate position the two younger Captains were in. Then again, if Zabimaru and Senbonzakura's proclivity for chatter was any indication, the Zanpakutou probably had a grapevine to rival that of the Shinigami Women's Association, so it was entirely possible that the two senior Captains had already been informed, in excruciating detail.

"Jyuushiro-sensei, Kyouraku-taichou," Byakuya greeted, not moving an inch from his improvised pillow. Offhandedly, Renji thought that it was going to be very difficult to carry on a conversation from that position, and wondered if Byakuya was doing it simply to prove a point.

He was torn away from contemplating exactly what that point _was_ by Ukitake's cheerful inquiry after his health - " 'm fine, really, I coulda gone back to work the day after th' attack!" - and Byakuya, his point, whatever it happened to be, apparently made, sat up and began pouring tea.

The discussion between the four of them meandered pleasantly for the better part of an hour; Ukitake eagerly asked about Ichigo and Rukia's twins, Kyouraku bemoaned the fact that Nanao was spending more time at the Sixth than her own Division, and the entirety of Renji's near-assassination was gone over once again. When he got around to the part about the reiatsu-sapping spell on the blade and Senbonzakura's lifesaving intervention, though, the other two Captains blinked in surprise.

"Retsu-san said you'd both been dual-marked, but the fact that Senbonzakura was able to intervene..." trailing off, Ukitake shook his head slightly. "That's quite unexpected, actually."

"So we gathered," Byakuya answered dryly, raising one fine-boned hand to tug the front of his yukata aside, baring the stark black lightning-mark on his chest. "What, exactly, does dual-marking entail?"

"Well..." glancing back and forth between the bold mark on Byakuya's pale skin and the softer, silvery tree gleaming on Renji's, Ukitake pursed his lips slightly and frowned. "As you can tell, it's a deeper indication of the bond that already exists between the two of you, an outward sign of the fact that you can communicate with one another's blades. It's exceedingly rare, and rather... unexpected in a bond as new as we believed yours is." Pausing, the man gave a sheepish chuckle, rubbing the back of his head. "Shunsui and I were together for over a century before Katen Kyoukotsu even deigned to speak to me."

"Although that's probably more a function of her personality than yours, Jyuu," Kyouraku pointed out, taking a sip of his tea. "Sogyo no Kotowari was certainly fond of giggling in my ears at unexpected moments long before that."

"Sogyo no Kotowari isn't known for being discriminate. From what I understand, they talk to anyone who will listen - willingly or otherwise."

Renji snickered softly. "Sounds like Yachiru."

"Actually," mused Kyouraku, raising one hand to rub his chin in an exaggeratedly thoughtful manner, "if you switched the gender and the color schemes, that'd be about... ow." Grimacing, he rubbed the side of his head and turned a wounded expression on a wincing Ukitake. "Jyuu, your Zanpakutou just _bit_ me."

"It's your own fault, you know, if you'd - oh, dear. Mind out."

_Mind out for what?_ Renji wondered briefly, before Senbonzakura's strangled yelp and Zabimaru's muttered "_Dammit_," answered the question for him.

Ignoring the plight of their Zanpakutou - currently being mobbed by the twin child-demons that made up Ukitake's blade-spirit - Byakuya drew their attention back with a polite cough. "When you say dual markings are 'exceedingly rare'..."

"Exceedingly rare, as in, Jyuu-chan and I are the only other pair in the Gotei who have them," Kyouraku answered levelly, pretending not to notice as Zabimaru's tail's shriek of _"We are not a pony!_" caused both Byakuya and Renji to wince.

"I see," Byakuya said after a moment, regaining his own composure with characteristic speed. "And being dual-marked involves...?"

"Oh, that's much easier to demonstrate than to explain," Kyouraku chuckled, waving the not-quite-question aside. "Tomorrow's your last day of medical leave, right?"

"It is. Is that pertinent?"

"Come out to the training grounds at the Ugendo late tomorrow afternoon," Jyuushiro spoke up, taking a cautious sip of his tea and trying not to snicker as his Zanpakutou badgered Senbonzakura to release his powers to they could play chase-the-flower-petals. "I'll speak with Unohana-senpai about getting you released from combat restrictions a bit early."

"Why the - Zabimaru, don't bite him! - why the Ugendo?" Renji asked, a bit warily. "And why's everyone givin' us the runaround when we try to ask about this?"

"We will answer as many of your questions as we can tomorrow, Abarai," Shunsui assured him as he clambered to his feet and offered a hand down to Ukitake. "It really is much more effective to demonstrate, I promise. But as for why the grounds at Ugendo - it's because they're already shielded. "

* * *

The rest of the day passed slowly. Unanswered questions buzzed through their minds like hornets, leaving both men too agitated to return to their earlier restfulness. Byakuya collected a blank notebook from the house and settled himself by one of the koi ponds, trying to compose haiku to settle his mind. The few resultant poems, while technically correct, lacked any degree of fluidity and came about looking more like something Kira would have written during one of his long-past drinking binges.

In the end, Byakuya wound up drawing the Seaweed Ambassador on the backs of all the papers out of sheer frustration.

Renji, still forbidden from wielding his Zanpakutou, went to the sparring grounds and fought hand-to-hand against shadows and imagination until he was dripping sweat and gasping for breath. It had been a long time since he surrendered himself to the simplicity of purely physical combat, and he reveled in the stinging ache of his muscles, the burn of sweat in his eyes, the exhaustion and exhilaration that battered him in equal measure.

A long soak in the baths that night helped to ease the vibrating tension in his body, and Byakuya, who joined him, muttering under his breath about symbolism and seaweed, quickly applied himself to eliminating any tension the bath had missed.

Both men fell asleep quickly, and dreamed of a wild forest filled with cherry blossoms.

* * *

Byakuya and Renji were midway through breakfast the next morning when one of the guards knocked politely on the half-open door, waiting for Byakuya's nod before ushering in Rikichi and... Hanatarou?

"Mornin', kid. Hey, Hanatarou. Have a seat," Renji offered, waving his hand towards the other side of the table. "You draw the winnin' straw this morning, Rikichi?"

With both Captains on medical leave, it had become necessary to ferry any critical paperwork up to the manor for review and signatures. In the interest of fairness, officers drew straws every morning for the privilege of making the run - privilege, because they were invariably invited to breakfast upon arriving at the manor.

The drawing was supposed to be limited only to the seated officers of the two Divisions, as most of the documents actually requiring a Captain's review were understandably sensitive, but Renji wouldn't entirely have put it past Minori to have shuffled Rikichi into one of the twentieth-seat slots. Gods knew she could forge Renji's signature on the necessary forms; any Lieutenant worth their salt could mimic their Captain's signature at need.

It was worth noting that Renji, while he was still Byakuya's Lieutenant, had managed to perfect the noble's signature, but was never required to put his skill into use. Byakuya, perfectionist that he was, always attended the critical paperwork himself.

"No, I didn't, sir," Rikichi answered sheepishly, as he and Hanatarou set their respective burdens of paper down and carefully seated themselves. A servant immediately appeared to pour them both tea and present plates for their use. "Minori-fukutaichou actually drew the winning straw herself this morning, but she said she was busy, and then Hanatarou came by with a letter..."

Ah. Minori, playing the romantic. Nice of her, if a little odd for someone who, as far as Renji could tell, never entertained thoughts of a relationship with anything other than her duties.

Mind, given the workload that he and Byakuya dumped on her, that might have more to do with time constraints than an actual lack of desire. He'd have to ask her the next time he was feeling particularly suicidal.

"So, anything new an' different?" Renji asked, with a casual flip of his hand that nearly stuffed his laden chopsticks up Byakuya's nose. "Whoops, sorry."

Byakuya halfheartedly glowered at him before turning an expectant glance towards Hanatarou, who wordlessly produced a folded and sealed parchment bearing Unohana's personal seal. He handed it carefully across the table to Byakuya, who thanked him with a wordless nod before unfolding the paper and scanning the contents.

Renji, most of his attention back on his breakfast, blinked and glanced up when Byakuya exhaled a soft chuckle, the sound startling Rikichi into dropping his chopsticks.

"Hm? What's so funny?" Renji asked, setting his chopsticks down and unashamedly leaning over Byakuya's shoulder. Still smiling faintly, the noble turned the parchment enough for Renji to get a clear look at the page.

The letter was a formal release from medical leave, written in pristine calligraphy and signed by Captain Unohana. Jotted in the margin of the page, however, was a short note, written much less carefully in the same hand. _'I am not responsible for your actions. - Retsu.'_

"Well," Renji remarked, feeling his eyebrows crawling towards his hairline in bewildered consternation, "that's new. D'ya think we pissed her off?"

"I think," Byakuya answered, folding the letter along the original lines and setting it carefully beside his plate, "that we are free to do as we wish today, but it would benefit us to find another avenue of healing in the event we are injured."

Rolling his eyes slightly, Renji turned his gaze to the young duo feigning invisibility on the other side of the table. "You two know the way to Ugendo?"

* * *

Not surprisingly, Hanatarou knew the Ugendo nearly as well as his own barracks - although, given that he was entirely capable of becoming lost in the Fourth's barracks, that perhaps wasn't as comforting as it should have been.

However, both he and Rikichi agreed to standby for butterfly messages in case of injuries during the afternoon's... training? History lesson? Renji shook his head slightly, gazing up at the pale stone wall surrounding Ukitake's family estate. Barely higher than his head, it was clearly there to define the boarder of the land rather than defend it. The gate was unguarded and the training grounds were at the opposite end of the property from the main house, so Ukitake and Kyouraku were the first ones to greet them when they reached Ukitake's tiny lakehouse.

The once-familiar dip and sway of the floating dock beneath Byakuya's feet brought a wave of memories across his mind, the sudden weight of them pulling him to a stop. Renji, startled, jerked himself to a halt just short of running into Byakuya's shoulder, and turned to stare at his partner in silent confusion, one eyebrow arched in inquiry.

"It's been... some time since I have been here," Byakuya offered after a moment, his memory providing him a painfully perfect recollection of the softness of Ukitake's bed, the smooth skin of his pale back just before the tremors of the coughing fit struck him, painting crimson across his pillow.

"Yes, that night didn't end particularly well for us, did it?" came Ukitake's cheerful voice as the white-haired Captain appeared in the open doorway. "No matter, Byakuya. It's behind us."

"No," Byakuya answered softly, his eyes firming as he pushed the memories back into their place. "I did you a grave discourtesy that night, when I ran away." A faint grimace flickered over his face before he added wryly, "I'm coming to realize I'm quite adept at that."

"Byakuya -" Ukitake began, but the young noble silenced him by taking covering the distance between them with a few steady strides before dropping to one knee at Ukitake's feet.

"Master," he said simply, bowing his head for the first time, "I am in your hands."

"Oh, Byakuya..." his expression stunned, Ukitake traced gentle fingers over Byakuya's cheek. Very gently, he slipped his hand beneath Byakuya's chin, raising the younger man's face so that he could meet his gaze. He stared into the silver-blue eyes for a long moment before nodding softly and carefully guiding the young noble to his feet.

With Byakuya standing, Ukitake gently tilted his former student's face to meet his own and placed a chaste kiss on his lips.

When he drew back, he looked over Byakuya's shoulder to meet Renji's level gaze. "You, Renji-san, are the best thing that could possibly have happened to him," he said firmly, then clapped Byakuya on the shoulder. "Now, let's go inside for tea!"

* * *

"Well, first things first. Obviously, both Jyuu-chan and I are both marked by our own Zanpakutou," Kyouraku began, the cup of tea he was holding waving meditatively back and forth beneath his nose. He'd been lounging at the back of Ukitake's room, watching the earlier interplay through the open door with no desire to get involved. "However, other than you, we're also the only other pair currently in Seireitei to be cross-marked, or dual-marked, or whatever you want to call it."

"Byakuya has seen my original marks," Ukitake added, gesturing vaguely to the area of his thighs. "I can't show them without getting undressed, but - Shunsui?"

"Oh, so it's all right for _me_ to get undressed?" the other man snickered, but shrugged his kosode and shitagi off his shoulders without any further complaint before turning his back to their guests.

Kyouraku's mark was... breathtaking. It was the only word Byakuya could think of to describe it. All of the marks he had seen tended towards monochrome - the twin fish circling Ukitake's hips were all done in shades of blue, his own mark in pink and silver, and Renji's in true, pure black. Kyouraku's mark was nothing like that.

Every scale of the two-headed dragon's sinuous body was defined in a different jewel-bright color; deep ruby, gleaming sapphire, brilliant emerald, and a hundred other shades that no gem Byakuya knew could touch. The body of the dragon ran down the length of Kyouraku's spine, tail vanishing beneath the back of his hakama, and the spread wings covered the entire width of Kyouraku's broad shoulders. Both necks of the dragon were curved back so that the heads faced one another, black eyes - the only black in the entire mark - exchanging wordless, silent secrets.

"Fuck," Renji muttered, "an' here I thought mine was impressive."

"Yours is certainly the most extensive we've ever encountered," Ukitake offered. "Katen Kyoukotsu-san is an extremely artistic soul, though, and I believe she enjoys toying with the colors. She actually changes them every few years."

"And it tickles like crazy when she does," Kyouraku added, mock-grumbling, as he shrugged back into his clothing. "I'm glad Sogyo no Kotowari isn't as fickle."

"It's mostly a woman's prerogative in any case," Ukitake chuckled, reaching over to give an affectionate tug to Kyouraku's hair. "Aren't you going to show them your other mark?"

"What am I, a display piece?" came the returning huff, but Kyouraku's dark eyes were alight with humor as he carefully pulled the pins from his ponytail and swept his hair up off the back of his neck.

Sogyo no Kotowari's mark, a pair of delicate, perfectly rendered fish in a dozen shades of stormy blue, each one barely the length of Byakuya's thumb, chased one another's tails on the back of Kyouraku's neck. Each of the fish was curved in a graceful arch, so that its body formed half of the perfect circle.

"As with yours, our cross-marks presented in the same location," Ukitake explained, pulling his own hair up to reveal the tiny, jewel-toned dragon marked on his pale skin. The serpentine body was twisted into a circle to match the fish on Kyouraku's skin, the black eyes of the dragon curiously inspecting the tip of its own tail.

"You never noticed that when you were sleepin' with him?" Renji asked Byakuya in an undertone, and the other shrugged in response.

"I did notice it. At the time, however, I had not seen Kyouraku's mark to compare it to, and I merely assumed it was a tattoo. It never occurred to me to ask. And," he added, turning his gaze back to the older Captains, "you still have not explained what the dual marking actually entails."

Kyouraku snorted, and Ukitake sighed softly as he let his hair fall back into place. "Back to the heart of the matter? I suppose you haven't changed _that_ much, Byakuya."

"Just as well, Jyuu, you'd keep him here all night if he let you."

"More to the point, if _Renji_ let me," Ukitake shot back, a conspiratorial smirk edging onto his face, and Kyouraku didn't stop snickering until Ukitake retrieved their Zanpakutou from a pillow in the corner and brought Sogyo no Kotowari's hilt down lightly on his head.

"Come on, you. Time to go demonstrate."

"Demonstrate _what_, exac - gah!" Kyouraku ducked out of the way of a second, much more purposeful, swing. "I'm coming! I'm coming!"

"Masochist," Renji remarked dryly, dodging Byakuya's elbow to the ribs, and rolled to his feet to follow the older Captains out.

* * *

"All waves, rise now and become my shield, lightning, strike now and become my blade!"

"Flower wind rage and flower god roar, heavenly wind rage and heavenly demon sneer!"

The surge of reiatsu was immense; even with his own energy raised in preparation for it, Byakuya nearly staggered under the onslaught. Glancing beside him, he saw Renji shifting his stance, pushing back against the throbbing power with his own strength.

A scrape of metal-on-metal sounded as the heavy scimitars of Katen Kyoukotsu's release were lowered slightly, the weight of them taxing.

"This," Kyouraku said simply, spreading his hands so that the light flashed off the blades in his grasp, "is the power of the bond the two of you have been granted." Another shift, a light swing of the delicate blades that sent the golden charms on the binding cord to swaying.

A speechless silence from both Byakuya and Renji was interrupted by a fast swing of the heavy scimitars and another burst of energy as the blades were resealed. "You're in a heavy mood today, Katen Kyoukotsu-san," Ukitake grimaced faintly, glancing down at the daisho swords in his hands. Kyouraku - Sogyo no Kotowari still gleaming in his hands - cast his partner an apologetic glance.

"You can... release... each other's Zanpakutou..." Renji managed to stammer, his eyes wide. Beside him, Byakuya merely stared in silent disbelief.

"Oh, not just release," Kyouraku chuckled. "Jyuu-chan, would you mind?"

"Not at all," the other man answered, carefully stowing the two blades he held in their respective sheathes, which he tucked into his belt. Taking a few careful steps back, he raised his hands as Kyouraku carefully raised Sogyo no Kotowari's blades.

"Hadou thirty-three, Soukatsui!"

The blue-white flames burst from Ukitake's hands in a blinding rush, boiling towards Kyouraku with inescapable speed -

- only to vanish at the tip of Sogyo no Kotowari's extended left blade. With a swing of his arm almost too fast to follow, Kyouraku turned the right-hand blade skyward, just in time for a torrent of blue fire to burst from the tip.

"Like I was saying," Kyouraku commented dryly, lowering the blade again as the fire guttered out against the kidou shields surrounding the training grounds, "we're not limited to just releasing one another's blades. It's taken a few decades of practice, but Jyuushiro and I can wield each other's Zanpakutou as effectively as our own."

"And given the speed at which your bonds are progressing, what took us a century should take you two about a week and a half," Ukitake added wryly, making his way back to Kyouraku's side. "So, any questions?"

* * *

Renji gazed down at the sheathed blade in his hands, his expression meditative. It was so rare that he even handled Senbonzakura, despite his ability to converse with the blade. A Zanpakutou was a shard of a Shinigami's very soul, one of the deepest and most intimate manifestations of the Shinigami's _self_. To touch another Shinigami's Zanpakutou was intensely personal - to do so without permission was tantamount to rape.

To release another's Zanpakutou... the thought of it had never even crossed his mind, as impossible as it was. But now...

As he stared down at the blade, he felt Senbonzakura's energy rise up, gentler than it had ever been before, the warrior's spirit brushing against his own. _"Do you fear to wield me, Renji-sama?"_ came the diffident question, and in his mind's eye Renji could see the samurai cocking his head inquisitively.

'_Not... fear, really,_' Renji thought back, struggling to catch ahold of his tumbling thoughts. _'It's more that I'd never even considered it.'_

"_There is no longer a need for consideration, merely action," _came the calm reply. _"There is a price to be paid for wielding me, however, if you are willing to accept this bond."_

'_Nothin's free in this world, Senbonzakura. I've know that from the start.' _Firming his stance, Renji drew the blade and raised it in one swift motion. "Take your price. Scatter, Senbonzakura!"

* * *

Sitting in the shade of a towering tree a short distance away, Byakuya watched breathlessly as the swirl of lethal petals blossomed from the blade. He could remember, only too clearly, the first time he had uttered that command, how the tide of harmless-looking steel flowers had descended upon him, taking their price from his flesh. Renji had stood, once, before the truest power of Senbonzakura, a power that would have killed any lesser man, and felt a pain a thousand times greater than that Byakuya had endured to pay the blade's price. And yet now, he spread his arms, fearless, and welcomed the lick of the petals against his skin. They opened tiny cuts, little stinging wounds that paid the price of that lethal beauty, a bounty demanded in blood.

'_The courtesy of a warning is more than you ever gave to me,'_ he commented to the blade, and heard the samurai snort in response.

"_You were a child and a fool," _came the flatly honest reply. _ "If I had told you I required payment, you would have offered money. Renji is Rukon; he knows what his blood is worth."_

The sally should have injured his pride, but Byakuya knew himself too well to say that the spirit was wrong. _'You take less from him as well, I see.'_

"_Only enough to seal the contract between us,"_ Senbonzakura answered easily as the petals slowly drifted around their second master, waiting for him to draw on his newfound strength. Opening his eyes slowly, Renji blinked droplets of blood from his eyelashes and regarded the cloud of blossoms surrounding him. _"I have already tasted Renji's power."_

'_As I well remember,' _Byakuya replied, feeling the weight of astonishment slowly give way under stunned joy as Renji swept his hand in a high arc and Senbonzakura obeyed the movement without question.

Glancing down at the the heavy katana resting across his knees, Byakuya asked quietly, _'Shall we, Zabimaru?'_

_

* * *

_

His breathing ragged, Tsutomu let his forehead drop to the rough wooden floor of the pitiful Rukongai hut his Master was forced to inhabit. It had taken him days to track Masa-sama's faint reiatsu signature here; if he had not known which direction to seek, he likely never would have found the man at all. He had already told his Master the details of his escape, and now waited with uneasy impatience for the noble's response.

"So, my loyal pet returns once again," Masa sighed, pacing the the floor with slowly measured strides before circling back to stand before the battered man. "Tell me, Tsutomu, if I throw a stick for you, would you retrieve it?"

"If it pleased you, Master, I would."

A disgusted snort answered that. "You were held by the Second Division, and you escaped them so easily? They could not have thought you a very valuable resource... which means they must already have extracted all the information they had hoped to gain. Tell me, Tsutomu, what did you tell them?"

The noble's always-smooth tones were silky, delicately soothing, and Tsutomu felt a tremor of fear run up his agonized spine. The last time his Master had spoken in that tone was when one of his former slaves had stumbled carrying a pot of tea and spilled the scalding liquid over Masa-sama.

Tsutomu had watched, stunned, as his Master had smiled gently, his face benign, and then proceeded to beat the slave to death without ever changing expression.

"Who was it that interrogated you, Tsutomu?" Masa-sama continued in that same velvet tone, and Tsutomu pressed his hands as hard as he could against the floor to control the shaking in them.

"Two women, my Master. One small and grey-eyed in the garb of a Captain, but the other, with gold eyes..."

There was a hiss of indrawn breath from above him, but he dared not raise his head to judge his Master's expression. "So, Yoruichi," Masa murmured, his tone slipping from silken to thoughtful, "the fallen goddess of the Shihoin Clan has returned to Seireitei. How fascinating... Did she have anything to say about me, Tsutomu?"

_He fought not to move, feeling the needle shift deeper, the thin trickle of blood down his thigh infuriating over the sensitive skin. The golden-eyed woman bent to peer into his eyes, her smile lethal. _

"_You should know by now that Byakuya is a friend of mine," the hell-whore whispered, her voice sickeningly tantalizing in his ears. "And any attack on his own, I take to heart. You made a mistake attacking Renji."_

"_Rukon filth," Tsutomu spat, unable to bear the woman's voice any longer. "He consorts with Rukongai whores! He does not deserve the blood in his veins or the name he so carelessly distributes!"_

_Smirking, the woman drew back. "I thought as much," she murmured triumphantly to the smaller hell-whore beside her. "I recognize that anger. It was Masa behind it, after all." _

_Tsutomu stared, sickened, as he realized what his Master's words had cost him. Those lambent-gold eyes burned like the very fires of Hell._

"I told her nothing, Master," he cried, the terror making his entire body tremble, "but she knew your name -"

"Oh, stop sniveling, Tsutomu, and sit up. You're making a terrible mess of my floor." The silky edge had quite vanished from the noble's voice, something exasperation leaving it rough and far safer than it had ever sounded before.

Swallowing harsh breaths, Tsutomu carefully pulled himself upright on his knees, attempting to favor all of his muscles at once, and settled in seiza. Almost as soon as he was still, he felt the last thing he had expected - his Master's hand on his head, stroking gently over his tangled hair.

"The truth is, Tsutomu," Masa-sama began softly, his hand so gentle that the agent let his eyes begin to slide closed, "this is the third time you have truly failed me. The children of the ward-house did not die. Abarai did not die. And..." his other hand shifted, moving out from where it had been hidden behind the folds of his kimono. "...you did not die."

The knife was a tiny one, used for trimming parchment and split brush-hairs, but it was well-forged and incredibly sharp. It passed through the cartilage at the front of Tsutomu's throat without the slightest effort.

Astonishment froze the agent in place. The pain hadn't penetrated yet; his body was still in a thousand types of agony from what the two women had put him through, and the knife was sharp enough to enter with barely a sharp sting. Masa-sama's hand, so gently stroking his hair a moment before, now fisted viciously in the tangled locks, keeping Tsutomu motionless, the tiny knife still hilt-deep in his windpipe.

"Perhaps it is for the best that you survived, though," Masa-sama remarked musingly, and pulled the dagger free with a precise motion. "I don't wish to expend the time breaking another slave to your level of obedience." Disdainfully, he released his grasp on Tsutomu's hair, letting the young man fall forward on his hands and knees, choking as the blood began to flow.

"The wound should not be fatal. The same thing is done to many commoners who are too sick to breathe through their noses," came the light comment, and Masa turned faintly smiling eyes to his manservant, who crouched silently in the corner, hoping to be forgotten. "Tend his wound. If he dies, your life is forfeit."

Assured that his orders would be carried out, Masa swept out of the room, rolling the sliding panel shut behind him to block out the sight of the two lesser men. There was much planning still to be done before his master's triumphant return.


	19. Hollow Gods

A/N: I owe all of you an apology; when I began this story, I was confident I would be able to keep up the weekly posting schedule I had enjoyed during RDBH. As usual, I failed to take into account Real Life, which has an unfortunate habit of derailing all plans. My job has been growing increasingly difficult of late, as my Boss has been laid up with severe migraines due to degraded disks in her neck. She had surgery on January 31st to fuse the affected vertebrae; while this will, hopefully, alleviate her pain, the surgery requires a six-week recovery period followed by physical therapy, during which time Boss is forbidden from working, therefore leaving me largely responsible for the business. As one would expect, this requires more of my time and energy and leaves less of both for writing, as well as giving me semi-perpetual headaches.

As of Wednesday, Boss is functional and coherent, although somewhat plagued with hiccups. Keeping her still for the six weeks is going to be the biggest problem...

I am *NOT* putting the story on hiatus, but I do beg your continued understanding with my delays and the fact that updates will likely be dropped back to biweekly until I can learn to function more effectively on five hours of sleep a night.

WARNINGS for the first section of this chapter; you get a fairly clear idea of some of what Yoruichi and Soifon put Tsutomu through. And Yoruichi can be a vengeful creature.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 19: Hollow Gods

* * *

"_Do you serve a hollow god?"_

_The words, softly spoken and entirely unexpected, took a long moment to penetrate the haze of pain muffling Tsutomu's mind. It was not until the grating voice of the odious beast calling himself the Lieutenant of the Division snarled "Don't talk to the prisoner!" that the question truly registered at all. _

'Do you serve a hollow god?'

"_I serve... my Master," he whispered back, forcing his split and bloodied lips to form the words. Even that careful, half-broken whisper stabbed pain through him, the expertly applied points of the needles grating at the hinges of his jaw._

_The fat Lieutenant snarled, drawing back a heavy fist and rattling it towards the bound and beaten man crumpled on his side on the cold floor of reiatsu-blocking stone. "And you, you hold your tongue!" _

_Brown eyes, mottled with red from the times when the deceptively strong hand of the amber-eyed hell-bitch had closed around his throat, cutting off his breath, turned beneath bruised lids to stare blankly at the enormous man, lingering scornfully on the heavy chains of gold weighting the man's neck and wrists. Letting a smile of contempt curl his broken mouth, Tsutomu deliberately turned his gaze to the man who had asked the question. "My Master," he whispered, feeling the scabs on his lips crack, trickling blood across his cheek and onto the floor, "serves the Hollows' God." _

"_I see," the young officer answered, his head tilting as he surveyed the broken form of the prisoner before him for a brief moment. _

_The Lieutenant wheeled to face his subordinate with a face full of wrath, one hand raised to deliver either striking emphasis or a reprimanding strike. _

_The first syllable had not even cleared his grease-smeared lips when the hilt of the young officer's Zanpakutou slammed into his temple. The dull crack of metal against bone echoed momentarily within the stone chamber, eclipsed a moment later when the Lieutenant's limp form struck the floor with a weighty thud. _

_Turning away from his superior's motionless body, the young Shinigami saluted Tsutomu with his blade. "We are servant's of the Hollows' God," he smiled, and bent to tend the prisoner's wounds._

_

* * *

_

_Half an hour later, Tsutomu carefully limped through the open door of the prison chamber. Just as the young Shinigami had assured him, every guard within the small tower lay lifeless, their bodies and blood marking the way out of the mazelike Second Division prison. _

_In the room Tsutomu had just left, the young Shinigami who had helped him escape lay silent, blood pooling blackly beneath his slit throat. _

_Staggering on legs that still drove hot stabs of pain through him with every stride, Tsutomu fled the Seireitei, seeking his Master once again._

_

* * *

_

"There was a _WHAT?_"

"A massacre, sir," Minori repeated calmly, hands folded behind her back and eyes fixed on some distant point on the ceiling. "Thirty-eight Second Division members killed, five of them seated officers."

Hands planted on his desk, Renji leaned heavily against the polished wood for a long minute as he fought his anger back under control. "Soifon and Omaeda?"

"Aside from her blood pressure, Captain Soifon is fine. Lieutenant Omaeda is in the hospital."

A raised eyebrow.

"He apparently took a minor concussion during the incident and would have been fine, except that Soifon-taichou was, ah, irritated with him not having done more to prevent the incident and..." Minori trailed off, masked what sounded like an anemic snicker in a quiet cough, and shook her head slightly. "Uhm, took it upon herself to... discipline Omaeda for his failure."

"By puttin' him in th' hospital."

"Yes, sir."

"An' this happened two days after th' assassination attempt."

"Yes, sir."

"And I wasn' informed a' this _why_?"

Minori managed to shrug with her hands still clasped behind her, expression apologetic and her gaze still focused somewhere above Renji's head. "Orders, sir. Unohana-taichou felt, and I quote, that 'the knowledge would have a negative impact on your willingness to endure your recovery period.' Knowledge about the incident was restricted solely to Captains and Lieutenants outside of the Second Division, and all of us were placed under a gag order concerning the incident until you were back on duty."

Renji sighed, taking his weight off one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, fighting to ward off the migraine he could feel threatening behind his eyes. Needless to say, this was hardly the welcome he'd expected his first day back.

"Th' guy that tried t' kill me. He's gone, isn' he."

The weary grimace that flickered across her face answered his statement even before Minori replied. "Unfortunately, yes. It appears his extraction was the objective of the attack."

"And...?"

"And from what I could understand of Soifon-taichou's snarling at the emergency briefing, the route your would-be assassin took out of Seireitei, combined with the fact that his already-low reiatsu was almost completely drained during his interrogation, made it virtually impossible to track him."

"Virtually?"

"Well, they haven't picked up his trail yet, so it's probably safe to assume that 'virtually' means 'completely' in this case."

"Well, fuck," Renji sighed finally, dragging the palm of his hand down the length of his face.

"Essentially, yes, sir."

Sighing, Renji dropped backwards into his seat, staring intently at the top of his desk for a moment before asking, "The old man have anything to say about this?"

"Yamamoto-soutaichou? Nothing other than to gag us about it, his thoughts seemed to be occupied with something else."

Renji snorted slightly at that - he knew damn well what was occupying the man's mind - but shook his head wordlessly when Minori cocked an eyebrow at him in question. She shrugged and continued.

"The regular joint meeting is tomorrow. Do you think you can keep yourself alive until then?"

Renji snorted in response. "You kiddin'? After th' mess last week, the guards and the Zanpakutou are all so twitchy I can't fuckin' sneeze without them thinkin' it's an attempt on m' life."

"Yes, about the Zanpakutou, sir," Minori began, her head cocked slightly sideways and her voice uncharacteristically hesitant. "...why are you carrying Senbonzakura?"

A bit bewildered, Renji glanced down at the sword riding at his hip. Instead of the familiar sight of Zabimaru's red-wrapped hilt and bronze guard, he was, much to his surprise, indeed carrying the austerely elegant Senbonzakura.

"Oh," he muttered sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head as he stared down at the pale hilt. "I grabbed you this morning?"

"_Yes, you did,_" the spirit answered, the wry amusement in his voice an oddly perfect match for Minori's. "_If it is any comfort, Byakuya-sama has not yet realized he is carrying Zabimaru."_

"You grabbed the wrong Zanpakutou on the way out the door and didn't even _notice_?" Minori asked, her voice rising with utter incredulity.

Renji grimaced. Both he and Byakuya had been so exhausted after their training yesterday that they'd barely mustered the energy to eat and bathe before collapsing into bed, and both of them had overslept that morning. Getting into their respective offices _on time _had required a judicious application of Flashstep, and obviously neither one had been paying particular attention to which of the two katana they grabbed from the rack on the way out of the bedroom.

Minori, however, did not need to know that. Snorting faintly, Renji shoved out of his chair and headed for the door. Regardless of how well he could wield Senbonzakura, it was probably better that he and Byakuya stuck with their own blades outside of training for the moment. "As close as Byakuya an' I am," he told her over his shoulder, "sharin' swords is the least of it."

There was a significant pause from behind him, and for a second he swore he could _hear_ her mind rearranging the meaning of his words. When he turned around to glare at her, she got her expression under control with some effort, and managed an only slightly strangled "I see," in response.

"Get your mind outta the gutter, woman," Renji snapped, rolling his eyes and trying to ignore the hysterical laughter he could hear from his own Zanpakutou.

"I'm your Lieutenant, sir," came the straight-faced reply. "It is the duty of my mind to follow yours."

"Scary thought."

"Utterly terrifying, sir."

"Oh, shaddup."

* * *

Two minutes later, Renji vaulted lightly through the window of the Sixth Division Captain's office, effectively scaring the liver out of the third seat working at his old desk. Byakuya, by contrast, did not even glance at him, the rhythm of his brush over paper never breaking.

"I had hoped," the noble remarked dryly, not bothering to lift his head, "that when I ceased referring to you as a monkey, you might cease behaving like one."

Snorting in response, Renji covered the distance between the window and Byakuya's desk in two long strides and dropped a fast kiss on the noble's head. "Nice t' see you too, asshole," he smirked affectionately. "Although y' could be a little nicer, seeing as I went through all the trouble of bringin' this back to ya," he chuckled, placing the sheathed Senbonzakura on the surface of the desk, across Byakuya's papers.

For a handful of heartbeats, Renji had the unheard-of pleasure of seeing Kuchiki Byakuya at a complete and utter loss for words. For a long moment, the man merely stared expressionlessly at the blade in front of him, before silently turning his gaze down to the katana still riding on his own hip.

"Dayo."

The young third-seat jumped at the sound of his name; Byakuya raised his head, fixing the sandy-haired officer with his cool gaze. "Leave us."

"Y-yes, sir, Kuchiki-taichou!" the man blurted, scrambling his way through a polite bow before all but bolting from the office.

Smirking faintly, Renji propped one thigh up on the corner of Byakuya's desk, leaning over the polished surface and calmly unfastening Zabimaru from its place at his partner's hip.

"F'r the moment, I think we're better off stickin' with our own," he explained, slipping the heavy katana into place at his belt and binding it. Byakuya could only nod, still overwhelmed by disbelief that he had not noticed the difference between the two blades. Senbonzakura was by far his oldest friend and confidant, the only being who had stood unshakably at Byakuya's side for over a century. The bond between them was undeniable, inescapable; one of the closest bonds between a Shinigami and a Zanpakutou in the entire Gotei. It was likely that only Hitsugaya and Hyorinmaru had a tighter bond than theirs.

And yet he hadn't noticed the difference in the two blades that morning, despite Zabimaru's greater weight and fiery colors.

On one level, it was terrifying, but at the same time, he felt vaguely reassured. Despite Ukitake's confidence in the bond Renji and Byakuya shared, and Renji's near-instantaneous skill with Byakuya's blade, the young noble had found himself, for the first time in over a century, left in the dust.

The weight of a Zanpakutou did not affect its true wielder - Ichigo and Zangetsu were prime examples of that - but, as Jyuushiro had explained, cross-bound Zanpakutou could choose how much their weight affected their second master.

When Byakuya and Renji had sparred against one another, each wielding the other's sealed blade, Senbonzakura had been light as a feather in Renji's strong hands. But Byakuya, his pale fingers clenched around Zabimaru's red-wrapped hilt, had been trembling with the effort of holding the blade after only minutes.

Attempting to use the shikai was worse. While Senbonzakura extracted a heavy cost, both in mental focus and the reiatsu needed to control him in battle, the force to use Zabimaru's whiplike shikai was pure brute strength; something Renji excelled at, certainly. And something that Byakuya had never boasted.

He had fought for it, that entire afternoon, driving himself until his body was numb and trembling, until sweat poured from him and his breath came in strained gasps. And that night, after Renji had collapsed into sleep, Byakuya finally surrendered his pride enough to ask the nue what he was doing wrong, that he could not handle Renji's blade as Renji handled his.

The snake had laughed at him, a grating, high-pitched sound, but the baboon had regarded him with an almost sympathetic gaze. _"It is not something you are doing wrong,"_ it had finally answered, after a long moment of silence. _"Merely something you have not yet realized."_

Byakuya did not ask for clarification; he knew the nature of Zanpakutou too well. Epiphanies must come to the Shinigami in their own time, not be handed to them by the spirits whose strength they sought.

In the meantime, he accepted his own blade back with good grace. He could feel the nue's steady reassurance that the matter would wait for another day, and he and Renji had other matters to discuss.

"Take it they told ya?" the redhead asked, letting himself slump slightly as Byakuya set his brush aside and sat back in his chair.

"I was informed of the incident at the Second Division, yes. Yoruichi personally explained the matter to me earlier."

"She mention anything 'bout what she'd gotten from the guy?" The vaguely mimed stabbing gesture was unnecessary, Renji realized, letting his hand fall away from his chest as Byakuya's mouth tightened.

"From what I was told, he proved singularly uninformative. However, Yoruichi did assure me that he was... severely damaged by the interrogation methods they subjected him to."

"_So there is some justice in the world, then," _the snake muttered sourly, earning a dark glance from Renji.

"Shut up, you. Why don't you make yourself useful and get more details on the guy from Soifon and Yoruichi's Zanpakutou?"

"_The blade of the Flash Goddess no longer has a voice," _the baboon answered, his voice weary. "_And attempting to gain information from Suzumebachi is..._"

"_Perhaps as wise as pulling Hyorinmaru's tail,_" Senbonzakura grumbled. "_The creature is exceedingly uncooperative._"

* * *

"And you believe the attack was connected to Aizen's work in Seireitei?"

Yoruichi, standing in the position of the Second Division's Captain with Soifon at her back, frowned slightly. "I believe it was, Soutaichou. The man apprehended by the Second Division is an agent of Kuchiki Masa, a known agent and supporter of Aizen's."

"And I still think you're leapin' to conclusions," Renji repeated. It was the third time he'd said as much, not that it was making the slightest bit of difference. "You said th' guy was Masa's agent. Masa hates my fuckin' guts. He bought me a few times when I was whorin' in Rukongai, an' when Byakuya showed up at the Council meetin' with an ex-whore as his Consort, he flipped. Went off on how someone with my history was unsuitable an' how Byakuya was tainting th' family's honor an' unworthy t' lead. Th' fact that he'd bought me in Rukon when I was still a kid eventually got 'im kicked off the Council an' outta the Clan. I can pretty well guarantee he blames me fer it. There's no real reason fer Aizen t' be considered in this. It's just a pain-in-th'-ass sadistic pedophile noble carryin' a serious grudge."

"Even if the assassination attempt was on Aizen's orders, or some interpretation of them, that doesn't answer the question of why Aizen would want Renji dead, though," Ichigo pointed out after a few beats of silence, a scowl etched deeply in his face.

Renji threw up his hands in disbelief. "Why do I bother?" he demanded of the ceiling, which remained stubbornly unhelpful. Minori and Kira's Lieutenant - he could never remember the guy's name - cast him sympathetic looks, while Iba merely shook his head.

Kira, standing beside Ichigo, shook his head. "Eliminating a potential threat," he answered immediately, his own frown nearly as deep as Ichigo's. "Even in the beginning, he knew that Renji would pose a threat to him, or his plans, at least. That's why Renji was moved out of the Fifth Division and into the Eleventh while Shuuhei, Hinamori, and I were kept on. Even back then, Renji was proving himself to be someone who actually put thought and consideration into the orders he received, something that would have been disastrous for Aizen."

"Che. Prob'ly hoped I'd get fed up an' kill 'im outta aggravation," Kenpachi muttered, his eye roving towards the ceiling.

"In which case, why did Aizen make no attempt to stop me from electing Abarai my Vice-Captain when I did so?" Byakuya pointed out. "The position of Fukutaichou of the Sixth is infinitely more influential than that of a mere seated officer in the Eleventh Division."

"I _beg_ your pardon!" huffed Yumichika, only to exhale sharply when Hisagi elbowed him in the ribs.

"He probably didn't object because he figured you would keep Renji downtrodden enough to be controllable," Kyouraku answered Byakuya, Yumichika's outburst ignored. "He didn't count on the depth of Renji's loyalty to Rukia - or his determination to see you on your knees."

"Shuunsui!"

"I meant that at face value, honestly!"

Hitsugaya turned his head to scowl up at the man standing beside him. "You waste half of every meeting either snoring or twisting our words into innuendo, and you expect us to believe you?"

"Captain!" Matsumoto exclaimed, horrified. Kyouraku tipped her a wink beneath the brim of his hat before adopting an injured expression.

"Your lack of faith wounds me, Hitsugaya."

"What a tempting notion," murmured Byakuya, earning himself a sharp look from both Kyouraku and Unohana and a snort from Zaraki. Beside the Kenpachi, Ukitake shook his head, trying to mask his smile.

Standing behind her Captain, Nanao cleared her throat significantly, shifting the heavy book in her arms in a decided threat. Kyouraku cringed away from the impending strike, but stopped short when Urahara's quiet voice carried under the general chaos threatening to engulf the hall.

"Actually, he may have done."

The rising argument over innuendo and innocence cut off abruptly; even Yamamoto was caught mid-motion, Ryuujin Jakka raised in preparation to bang the floor.

"Kisuke?" Ukitake asked, one eyebrow raised in polite inquiry. The Captain of the Twelfth frowned quietly at the floor for a moment, as though seeking out answers in his blurred reflection.

"Aizen. He may well have counted precisely on the depth of Renji-san's loyalty and determination," Urahara clarified, and glanced back up when he was met with bewildered silence. "Think about it," he said softly, stepping forward enough to meet the Soutaichou's eyes. "The actions of an honorable man - or woman," he added, with a nod to Yoruichi, "are easy to predict when a beloved childhood friend is in danger. Renji-san would challenge his Captain, possibly even fight him, and be either discredited by his actions or killed in the battle. The only thing Aizen actually failed to factor in," he continued, a faint flicker of mischief touching his eyes as he glanced between the Fifth and Sixth Division Captains, "was Byakuya-san's better nature actually overcoming his training."

Loathe to actually turn his head and therefore acknowledge the comment, Byakuya merely directed his scathing glare at the ceiling. Renji, however, sighed aloud.

"I don't understand it," Shuuhei muttered, leaning forward enough to meet Renji's eyes around Komamura's massive form. "Why are you two so adamant that Aizen has no involvement?"

Renji snorted. "B'cause Rukongai apparently breeds more common sense than th' noble classes?"

There was a furious shout and a strangled squawk from the other side of the Hall; Soifon had apparently made to leap at him for the perceived insult to her Yoruichi-sama, only for said woman to yank her backwards by the collar of her uniform.

"It would not benefit us to do Aizen's work for him," Unohana chided, as Yoruichi glowered at her blushing protege and Renji mouthed expletives at the ceiling.

"All right, so we've accepted that Renji was, on some level, a threat to Aizen," Ichigo spoke up from his place at the head of the odd-numbered line. Two places down, Renji clapped both hands over his face with a groan. "That doesn't answer why someone's going after him _now_."

"It is possible that Aizen's remaining agents are simply acting in a manner they believe would honor their fallen leader," Urahara answered, his gaze turning inward again and his face troubled. "In which case, eliminating Renji would be, from a purely tactical standpoint, a good place to start. His death would eliminate not one, but two Captains -"

"Two? Why two?" Hitsugaya demanded, turning back towards the blond man beside him.

"Quite simply, because Kuchiki-taichou would no doubt be prostrate with grief upon losing his partner," Urahara answered. All eyes slid to the silent Sixth Division Captain, whose only reply was a simple, slow nod.

"...as well as strike a significant blow against the morale of the Gotei," Ukitake added, his own frown etching deep creases beside his mouth. "Renji is exceptionally well-loved, after all."

"Has anyone considered that it might be jealousy?"

Startled silence descended over the hall. All eyes slowly turned to Kira, who shifted his weight uneasily under the focused gazes.

"Jealousy?" Hisagi echoed curiously, before anyone else could speak up. "Why jealousy?"

"Well, it's... the Fifth was a model Division when Aizen lead it," Kira offered, a distant frown on his face as he spoke. "But Renji's leadership has made every officer under his command blossom. He's become a better Captain than Aizen ever was, and the Division is stronger under his hand."

"And you think Aizen's agent is trying to kill him in a fit of jealous spite?" Kyouraku frowned, rubbing his chin. "Actually, it makes sense. Sosuke never did like being upstaged."

"No," Urahara answered dryly, "he generally took great pleasure in eliminating his competition."

Unohana, Kyouraku, and Ukitake all grimaced slightly at the reminder. It had been easy after the War, when the truth of Aizen's deception and the depth of his conspiracies had been revealed, to wish that they could simply put the memories behind them, learn the lessons they taught but leave the painful emotions behind.

It was harder to set the feelings aside when faced with Urahara's polite murmurs of time in the Living World, the icy metallic flavor of Ichigo's Hollow reiatsu, or the occasional, phantom nightmares of memories that lingered in the Divisions that had been betrayed.

Raising an eyebrow, Byakuya cast a glance across the room to Renji. The redhead shrugged slightly, shaking his head in response. The silent _how am I supposed to know?_ was as clear as if he'd held up a sign.

"If the actions taken against Abarai are indeed those of an agent of Aizen, rather than a personal grudge," Yamamoto began, ignoring Renji's gusty sigh, "then it must be determined how, or if, they are receiving direction."

His expression uncomfortable, Hitsugaya shifted his weight slightly from foot to foot. The movement was miniscule, but it was still enough to catch Yamamoto's half-open eyes.

"Did you have something to add, Hitsugaya?" he demanded gruffly, and the young Captain froze again.

"Not at this time, Soutaichou-sama," came the stiff reply, and the old man grunted wearily.

"Children these days. No patience," he muttered, shaking his head slightly before he continued. "Tousen is dead and Ichimaru is in no position to be dictating actions..."

* * *

The discussion dragged on for another three hours, and probably would have gone on beyond that if Rukia - her children in the care of the Fourth Division for the duration of the meeting - hadn't abruptly collapsed as Yamamoto had begun the discussion of Aizen's influences, _again_.

Ukitake and Unohana were quick to excuse the matter as residual weakness from the birth of her children, but an observant eye could discern the quick wink that Ukitake tipped in his Lieutenant's direction. As the meeting broke up and Ichigo carried his 'exhausted' wife out the door, the white-haired Captain leaned over his shoulder to whisper wearily, 'Thank you, Kuchiki-san, I was only seconds away from having to succumb to a massive coughing fit.'

Rukia snickered in response, but did at least wait until they were out of immediate eyeshot of the First before leaping out of Ichigo's arms, sticking her tongue out at him, and leaping into Flashstep with a cheerful declaration of 'Race you!'.

"What the - dammit, Rukia!"

Ichigo's departure left a whirlwind swirl of reiatsu and dust behind him; Byakuya, snorting disdainfully - a more dignified disdainful sniff would have resulted in a noseful of dust and sneezing was never dignified - twitched his scarf back into place and shook his head.

"The thought of the two of them _raising_ children is genuinely terrifying."

"Eh, 't least they're havin' fun," Renji grinned back, leaning over and dropping a light kiss on the noble's lips, despite the fact that five other Captains were still within a few strides of them.

"_Renji_!" Byakuya exclaimed, but his only answer was a snickered 'See you tonight!' and a swirl of dust as Renji followed Ichigo's departure.

* * *

Even stationary, the weight of the katana across his knees was oddly pressing.

A faint frown on his face, Byakuya settled himself more firmly back against the cherry tree he was sitting beneath - the same one Renji's blood had touched the roots of not even two weeks ago - and watched silently as Renji danced among a storm of lethal blossoms, not one of which dared to touch his skin.

Senbonzakura responded to Renji's hand as readily as Byakuya's own, a fact that delighted the noble no end. It was proof, incontrovertible proof that he and Renji were bound on the deepest level possible, a level that went beyond bodies or hearts and touched the very soul.

Now, if only he could get Zabimaru to agree with him.

The baboon sighed, sounding as weary as Byakuya felt. "_We do not deny the bond that exists between us, White Prince. It is merely a question of you knowing not only your worthiness, but your worth."_

'_All this time I believed you to be a nue, Zabimaru,' _Byakuya countered, his pride nettled by the blade's lack of cooperation even though his mind knew to expect it._ 'Why do you spout riddles like a sphinx?'_

"_They wouldn't be riddles if you were clever enough to understand what's needed," _the snake hissed back, the level of aggravation in its voice rivaling what Byakuya felt._ "All these decades, I suppose we've been spoiled with having a genius instead of a mere prodigy..."_

"_You dare to insult Byakuya-sama?"_

The nue yelped, startled, as Senbonzakura's energy crashed over them, and both Zanpakutou tumbled out of Byakuya's direct line of mental vision, the argument fading from his ears as they did so. Shaking his head slightly, he dragged himself out of his meditation to blink at Renji, who was staring down at the abruptly-sealed blade in his hands with bewilderment.

"I missed most 'a that. What - "

"Do not ask," Byakuya sighed, unfolding his legs with some effort and climbing to his feet. "It is time for dinner. Perhaps by the time we are finished, they will have concluded their squabble."

* * *

Dinnertime passed, and the two blades eventually sulked their way back to their respective owners, their energies reflecting their ruffled tempers and appearances. Neither spirit spoke a word upon their return, and Byakuya and Renji prepared for bed with the odd silence weighing in their minds.

"I am missing something," Byakuya sighed, as he slipped beneath the heavy blankets beside his partner, only slightly reassured by Renji's arm sliding around his waist. "I know I am missing something, and yet I cannot identify it."

"Try not thinkin' so hard," Renji advised on a barely-stifled yawn. "It'll come t' ya sooner or later."

"I pray that it is sooner," Byakuya answered wearily, but the dull mutter fell on deaf ears. Renji was already asleep.

His mind still swimming restlessly, Byakuya measured time by breath and heartbeats until they became too many to count, then began judging the passage of hours by the track of the diffuse moonlight up the wall. He was still watching when the pale glow reached the two Zanpakutou resting in their stand atop the dressing-table, turning Senbonzakura's hilt to silver and Zabimaru's black as...

...blood.

"A fool's epiphany," Byakuya muttered, all but scrambling from the futon and across the room. Zabimaru was heavy in his hands, heavier than it had ever been before, so heavy he could barely lift it to pull the scabbard away. The polished wooden sheath had barely fallen back to the table as Byakuya set his palm against Zabimaru's edge and drew his hand down the length of the blade.

The pain was sharp, hot, and immediate, and his blood gleamed red-black in the moonlight on the polished soulsteel.

The sound of a soft footstep behind him pulled his attention away from the blade he held - the blade he held so easily now, almost weightless in his hand - and to Renji, standing beside the futon, a sleepy smile on his face.

"Told ya it'd come t' ya," the redhead grinned, gently taking hold of Byakuya's bloodied hand to wrap a cloth over the deep slash on his palm. "I wanted t' tell ya, but they wouldn' let me," he murmured, nodding towards the two Zanpakutou.

"_Blood, freely realized and freely given,_" Zabimaru said softly. "_Not the worthiness of a prince, but the worth of any man. Our cost is met. Welcome, White Prince."_

Feeling the power of the nue swell through him, Byakuya could only smile.


	20. Long and Broken Road

A/N: Well, two weeks it was... hopefully this chapter was worth the wait. I will warn you guys, this one kicked my ass six ways to Sunday, so it's either going to be the best thing of mine you've ever read or the worst thing I've ever written. I'm hoping it's the former. Let me know.

Also - please finish the chapter before yelling at me about the character death. It's really not who you think, unless you're Iris, because she's the only person I've told.

This is another one of those time-skip chapters, picking up three years after chapter 19.

'Translator's' Notes: FUBAR: A military acronym, standing for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. It is the stronger sibling term to SNAFU, which is Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.

WARNING: Extreme levels of angst. Actual character death is revealed in next chapter.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 20: Long and Broken Road

* * *

Something was patting his face.

Groaning faintly, Ichigo attempted to shift his head away from the irritating tapping, only to feel the surface beneath his cheek crinkle and shift with the movement, sticking uncomfortably to his skin.

"Ugh." Opening his eyes, Ichigo groaned aloud as the all-too-recognizable sight of one of his textbooks at point-blank range. It was hardly the first time that what he'd hoped to be a productive study session had ended up with the material literally stuck to his face. Carefully lifting his head to detach the page from his cheek and check that he hadn't drooled excessively on it - he hadn't, thankfully - Ichigo turned to look at his wakeup call.

Brown eyes, narrowed with the stern gravity that only a three-year-old can truly manage, regarded him from under tousled black bangs. "Daddy fell 'sleep," Kaien informed him with the air of one imparting the gravest secrets of the universe, and Ichigo mustered a weary smile.

"Yes, Daddy did fall asleep. Which was very naughty of him, because he's supposed to be studying for a test next week."

Kaien puffed his cheeks in response, his expression somewhere between consternation and annoyance. Before he could think of a response, though, a cheerful voice interrupted them.

"Maybe he needs something to keep him awake?"

Turning in his chair, Ichigo smiled at the sight of Yuzu standing in the open doorway. Walking in front of her, Masaki wore an expression of intense focus on her face, determined not to tip the tray in her hands that bore a cup of steaming tea to her father. She crossed the room with careful steps, Yuzu right beside her, a more heavily-laden tray containing a full meal.

"Thanks, sweetheart," Ichigo said, lifting the teacup from the tray as Masaki stopped beside his desk. Kaien, his face still serious, applied himself to carefully rearranging his father's sleep-crumpled notes so that Yuzu would have room to set the tray.

"Thanks," Ichigo repeated, his smile weary as his sister settled his food on the desk. Although his life had settled into something that could nearly be described as routine - school, train, family life, battling the still-increasing number of Hollows entering Karakura - fighting his way through medical school while still juggling his personal life and his sporadic duties to the Soul Society was more than enough to make Ichigo forget regular meals. Yuzu, in typical form, had stepped in to take over the household duties that Ichigo didn't have time to manage, taking care of both him and the children when Rukia was tied up in the Soul Society with her duties.

Now, along with tending to Isshin and helping at the Clinic, Yuzu happily babysat her niece and nephew, tidied up her brother's modest house, and ensured that he actually ate at least twice a day in between slaying Hollows and battling term papers.

A disbelieving Karin had asked, early on, exactly when Yuzu planned on letting Ichigo - and, for that matter, Isshin - grow up and learn to take care of themselves for a change. She'd been suitably surprised when Yuzu scolded her in response, pointing out that Ichi-nii and Oyajii kept them all safe and protected, and really, what was a few meals and a bit of cleaning and babysitting compared to that?

Karin had shaken her head, pointed out that there was a difference between babysitting nieces and nephews was different than babysitting brothers and fathers, but eventually let the discussion drop. Busy as she was with school and competitive soccer games, interspersed with her continuing martial arts lessons and the occasional skirmish with a Hollow, she didn't have the time or energy left over to play at being a housewife, something that seemed to be her gentler sister's only aspiration.

Ichigo couldn't help feeling guilty about his sister's apparent desire to put her life on hold to take care of him and Isshin, but Yuzu, like every other member of her family, did what she wished to and felt was right, regardless of what she was told to the contrary.

And, Ichigo sighed, already bolting down the food she's brought him, he couldn't deny that her help was invaluable. Gathering up his textbook in the hand not wielding his chopsticks, he thumbed his way back through the pages. He still had six chapters to review before Tuesday.

* * *

Two hours later, the opening strains of Richie Sambora's 'If God Was a Woman' broke his concentration on the lymphatic system, his hand automatically reaching for the cellphone clipped to the back of his belt. No need to check the screen - there was only one woman in his contact list who drove him crazy enough to warrant that ringtone.

"Hey," he said softly, leaning back in his chair and letting his spine decompress.

"Ichigo," Rukia's voice answered immediately, quick and sharp. "Have you heard from Ishida and Orihime yet?"

Shaking his head in disbelief, Ichigo winced slightly at the crack of his neck before answering. "Rukia, their plane hasn't landed yet. They only took off a couple of hours ago - they're still somewhere over the ocean."

It had been a dream of Orihime's for years now to travel the world of the Living, perhaps understandable after so many years traversing the world of the dead. One of the places she'd always hoped to see was America's New York City, with the bright bustle of millions of people and hundreds of cultures - all with their own unique foods.

The fact that Uryuu - despite having graduated medical school in a near-impossible three and a half years, instead of the standard six - had managed to scrape together enough money to fly his wife and himself across an ocean for a week-long anniversary gift was nothing short of unbelievable. Ryuuken's money had to have factored in somehow, not that anyone involved would have admitted as much.

"Well, call me as soon as you hear anything from them, all right? Leave me a voicemail; the Thirteenth is headed out on assignment in a little while and I won't be able to answer."

"Fine, fine," Ichigo sighed, shaking his head again but not bothering to fight the smile on his lips. "Why are you so worried about it, anyway?"

"Why am I worried?" Rukia shrilled back, her tone indignant. "Humans, flying around in some big metal bird? It's not _natural, _Ichigo! I have every reason to be worried about it!"

"People fly in aeroplanes every day, Rukia. It's not natural, but it's perfectly normal. And besides, your brother's Bankai release lets him fly around on big white energy wings; that's not exactly natural, but I don't hear you worrying about _that_."

"Yes, but that's Nii-sama," Rukia retorted, the roll of her eyes clearly audible in her tone. "He's powerful. Humans are so fragile!"

"First off, Ishida's not human, he's a Quincy. And second, don't ever let him hear you call him fragile, or he'll pierce your navel for you via your spine."

"He would _not_!" Rukia gasped back, indignant. "He's family!"

Ichigo raised his eyebrows at the phone, not bothering to answer. Rukia let the awkward silence hang for a beat before adding, "In a very strange and dysfunctional manner, anyway."

"Anything involving our families is strange and dysfunctional," Ichigo felt the need to remind her. "The most normal member of my circle of friends is a rock bassist with Hollow powers."

Rukia's laughter drifted back over the line. "Renji got ahold of their latest CD for me, it sounds amazing. They're doing another Japanese tour next year, right? Which reminds me, how is Tatsuki doing?"

"Yeah. And she's pissy as hell," Ichigo answered with a fond chuckle. "She can't do anything other than deskwork at the dojo, and I think she's going stir-crazy."

"She has my sympathies," Rukia answered wryly, and Ichigo snorted. Both of them remembered the last months of Rukia's pregnancy with painful clarity, when the twins she carried had left her unable to move at anything beyond a fast waddle. She'd been forced to command drills from a stool when her feet ached too much for her to stand, much to the amusement of the rest of the Thirteenth's officers.

Tatsuki - currently in her eighth month of pregnancy - was not taking her enforced idleness with the same grace Rukia had. Unsurprisingly, she still insisted on managing every aspect of the dojo's day-to-day business, even while she was completely unable to lead classes.

"And you will call me if she goes into labor?" Rukia pressed, and Ichigo sighed, letting his head drop forward slightly.

"Rukia, for the millionth time, she's barely at the eight-month mark. She's not likely to go into labor yet."

"I was only at the eight-month mark -"

"You were carrying twins," he reminded her again. "Tatsuki isn't, so she's less likely to deliver prematurely. But I've been talking to Nova, and he said he'll call me as soon as anything happens."

"And you'll call me."

"Yes, Rukia, I will call you. And leave you a voicemail," he added wearily, reaching across the desk to drag some of his notes a little closer. "What's this so-important assignment you're heading out on, anyway?"

"A potential Hollow infestation a little ways outside of Inuzuri," she answered blithely, and Ichigo swore as he knocked the papers to the floor in surprise.

"Hollow _infestation_? And you're just going marching in and - "

"Would you relax for a second, you idiot? We've put scouts along the border, and the Twelfth Division has been taking readings for us. There's no evidence of anything approaching even Gillian level. We're taking a full detachment just as a precautionary measure, and Taichou's coming along because he said he's bored, but we're not expecting any trouble."

"Yeah, it's when you don't expect trouble that it comes and bites you in the ass," Ichigo answered a bit sourly, hearing the high-pitched snicker of his Hollow echo at the back of his mind. "Be careful out there, all right?"

"I'll be just as careful as you always are," she retorted cheerfully, and hung up while he was still cursing.

Growling to himself, Ichigo punched out a rapid text message to her '_if u get hurt am so saying I told u so' _and jabbed the Send button with an entirely unnecessary amount of force.

The reply came back a few seconds later; '_Love you too, jackass. Leaving now, call later!'_

Shaking his head and smiling faintly, Ichigo saved the message and set his phone aside before gathering his notes from the floor. Rukia was tougher than she looked; she knew how to take care of herself.

So why did he have such an uneasy feeling lingering in his stomach?

* * *

Hours later, Ichigo had long since set his books aside and surrendered himself to the inevitability of sleep, fighting the nauseous twisting of his stomach. When he closed his eyes, nightmares danced behind his eyelids, a twisted combination of memories and imagination. Blood and death and Hollows and Hollows and _Hollows_ -

When he jerked awake, sheets knotted around his legs, it took him a heartbeat to process that the sobs he was hearing were coming from outside of his head as well as the screams within it.

"Kaien! Masaki!" Jerking his feet free of the twisted bedsheets, Ichigo scrambled towards the door, only to be brought up short when the cellphone resting on his nightstand began blaring Queen's 'Headlong' - Renji's ringtone. Twisting back, Ichigo snatched the phone and answered it without missing a beat, yanking his bedroom door open and rushing into the hall. He could hear the rising sobs from the twin's bedroom, nearly drowning out Yuzu's soft, worried voice.

"Renji, what?" he snapped into the phone, expecting a drunken ramble in greeting - the last time Renji had called him at such an ungodly hour had been the result of a decided overindulgence, courtesy of Matsumoto. Surprise jerked him to a stop just within the twin's bedroom when Renji's reply came, quiet-voiced and decidedly sober.

"Ichigo, you need to get down here."

"Renji, it's... three-thirty in the frigging morning and my kids are crying, if you need me for something idiotic -"

"The Thirteenth's mission went FUBAR," Renji said, his voice flat and emotionless, and Ichigo felt all the breath leave his chest. Unfeeling, unthinking, he sagged back against the doorframe, numb to the sensation of the wood digging into his back and barely conscious of the sudden silence in the room as Yuzu and the children turned worried eyes to him.

"Rukia?" he whispered into the phone, his voice broken, and he heard Renji draw a shaking breath on the other end of the line.

"She and Ukitake went in against this Hollow... it read like it was nothing, so the Twelfth didn't flag it, but it released some sort of toxin..."

"Renji -"

"Ukitake went in first, and the stuff tore his lungs up, and Rukia, fuck, she wasn't going to stand for watching someone else die right in front of her -"

"_Renji_!" Ichigo said again, and was rewarded by a dull silence. "Tell me Rukia's okay. Please, tell me she's okay."

"Ichigo, you need to get down here," the other man repeated, and now, only now, did Ichigo hear the broken pain in his friend's voice. "Unohana's doesn't think she's going to make it."

* * *

The dull throb in Ichigo's chest echoed again, harder and fiercer, something like pain if he'd been able to feel it, but he couldn't feel anything other than numb, numb to the scrape of the wooden doorframe against his back as he slid down, numb to the pain in his ankle as his legs folded awkwardly under him, numb to the feeling of Yuzu's hands on his shoulders, her voice frantic in his ears.

"Momma's hurt."

The words seemed to echo momentarily in the sudden silence within the room, jerking Yuzu's head around and pulling Ichigo from the aching numbness within his own mind to stare, blank and uncomprehending, at Masaki. She blinked back at him, tears still overflowing from her dark eyes, and repeated the words with tearful conviction.

"Momma's hurt. The voices told us."

"The... ?" Numb as he was, Ichigo couldn't bring himself to repeat what his daughter has said, and it was a relief when Yuzu asked instead, her voice trembling.

"Voices, Masaki-kun? What voices?"

"We got voices," Kaien replied, his voice thick with tears but oddly defiant. "In here," he added, tapping a hand against his chest, over his heart, when neither of them reacted.

The inside of Ichigo's own soul had been echoing nothing but silence since Renji's voice first came over the phone line, so the shock nearly knocked him to the floor when Zangetsu spat out a curse. It was partly because he'd never heard the usually-unflappable spirit murmur the faintest hint of profanity, but most of it was simply the shock of the silence shattering.

With his world already turning on its ear, it was almost a relief to hear something as normal as Shirosaki's shrieking laughter. Until, of course, the Hollow began to speak and turned everything upside down again.

"_Zanpakutou spirits! The brats already hear their Zanpakutou spirits!" _

"How?" The whisper, as broken as it was, barely escaped Ichigo's lips. Zangetsu heard him - of course he heard him, Ichigo had never needed to make a sound for the spirit to hear him, Zangetsu read his silences as easily as an open book - and merely shook his head in reply.

"_Such a thing should not be possible, but you are forever questioning impossibilities. It does not matter at the moment,_" the spirit added, sounding... almost shaken. "_Sode no Shirayuki calls us._"

Nodding - and it was a relief, to be able to feel his body enough to force his head to move - Ichigo pushed himself to his feet, staggering slightly from the numbness in his knees. "I have to go," he said softly, glancing back to his sister's worried face. "Yuzu -"

"I'll stay," she answered immediately, her face firming with grim determination. "Go, Ichi-nii."

Nodding again, he glanced over his shoulder to where his children stood beside their beds, watching him with wide eyes. "You two stay with Yuzu and behave yourselves. I'll call as soon as I know anything."

His badge was in his hand, even though he didn't remember grabbing it as he left his room, but he used it now, fleeing his mortal form as the metal struck his chest.

He was halfway to the Senkaimon by the time his body hit the floor.

* * *

Looking back, Ichigo couldn't remember anything after leaving his home, not until he pushed through the door of the Fourth Division's critical-care ward and met Renji's blank, haunted gaze.

For one brief, ridiculous second, his mind flickered back to the day Rukia had given birth to the twins, how he'd made a no-doubt similar mad dash through Karakura and Seireitei to get here, to the Fourth Division, where he'd been greeted with Renji's quips and Rukia's sarcasm and the birth of the children that meant the world to him.

Today... today he stared blankly into the room, taking in the too-still, too-silent forms on the two beds. Ukitake was on the left, his skin nearly as pale as his hair and the pillowcase beneath his head. The bedclothes were pulled up to his neck, but the colorless hospital-issue sheets were mostly hidden beneath the eye-searingly pink flowered kimono that had been spread over top of them.

Huddled in the chair beside the bed, Kyouraku clung to Ukitake's limp hand. His eyes were red-rimmed and damp, but his mouth was still twisted in a tremulous smile, his lips moving faintly as he murmured to his lover, the words too soft for anyone else to hear.

His heart seizing in his chest, Ichigo turned to look at the second bed in the room.

Rukia looked smaller than ever in the stiff bed, her hair starkly black against the bleached pillowcase and the sick paleness of her skin. The rise and fall of her chest was so faint that he could barely judge it from across the room. Her hands rested on top of the blanket, her fingers delicate and impossibly fragile where they lay.

Ichigo crossed the room in a few fast, desperate strides, dropping to his knees beside her bed to wrap one of those pale, cool hands in his own warm ones, fighting desperately against memories of a rain-soaked riverbank and how much another unseen Hollow had stolen from him.

* * *

He wasn't conscious of how much time went by; it might have been minutes or days for all he knew - before Renji's hand settled on his shoulder, dragging Ichigo's attention off of the fragile hand lying motionless in his own.

The cup of tea was thrust close enough in front of his face that Ichigo jerked back reflexively, the back of his shoulder colliding painfully with the edge of a chair that someone - likely Renji - had set down behind him.

Wincing slightly, Ichigo staggered to his feet and dropped into the chair, shifting it close enough to Rukia's bedside that he could reach her hand without a struggle. The cup of tea was placed firmly in his free hand, and he sipped it without thinking, lifting his gaze from Rukia's face long enough to murmur a thank-you.

It wasn't until he looked up, his eyes flicking to the bottom of the bed where Renji stood, that he noticed the two chairs set up against the wall next to the door. One of the seats, presumably Renji's, sat empty, but the other one was occupied, the man sitting in it as still and silent as either of the pair fighting for their lives in the beds.

"Byakuya?"

The noble didn't respond; he remained sitting, motionless in his chair, hands resting in his lap, eyes gazing unblinkingly at a point on the opposite wall, midway between the two beds.

"Byakuya!"

"He won't answer," Renji said softly, and Ichigo jerked his attention back to the other man, watching with wide eyes as Renji silently crossed the room to take the empty chair next to his partner.

The fact that Byakuya didn't even react to that... that, in itself, scared Ichigo almost as much as Rukia's stillness. In the years he'd known the two men, he had never once seen Byakuya fail to react _somehow_ to Renji's presence. But now... now he sat, statue-still, without so much as blinking as the man he'd sworn his life and soul to sat beside him, shoulders bowed under the weight of grief.

"Renji, what - what happened?" Ichigo whispered, setting his tea aside and tightening his hand around Rukia's own.

The redhead sighed, slumping forward to rest his elbows on his knees and letting his head hang. "Thirteenth went out on patrol. They'd been gettin' reports of a few disappearances in their assigned districts of Rukongai, and figured it had to be Hollows. A team from the Twelfth was sent out to track down an' analyze 'em, and they came back saying it was a nest of low-grade Hollows."

"Rukia told me all that," Ichigo interrupted, and Renji nodded slightly, his hair wavering with the movement.

"Yeah, well, what she didn't tell you - what we didn't know - is that the Hollows were Aizen's leftovers. They'd all been modified, one way or another. Ukitake went in ahead of the group, and one of the Hollows... y' ever see Kurotsuchi's Bankai? I know Ishida went up against it. It released a poisonous vapor, nasty stuff. This Hollow had th' same ability."

Breaking off, Renji shook his head slightly. "The second Ukitake went down, Senbonzakura _screamed_..." A tremor ran across the slumped shoulders, and Renji rubbed his arms briefly as though trying to ward off a physical chill. Dimly, Ichigo registered that Renji was probably in shock, before it occurred to him that he probably was, as well.

"I c'n live t' be as old as Yamamoto, an' I'll never forget that sound," Renji continued softly, folding his arms across his chest and gripping at his shoulders, tightly enough that he was undoubtedly leaving bruises on his own skin. "Byakuya and I... we ran there. Never stopped to think, never called for backup, nothing. But Kyouraku knew what had happened, too, and Ise got medical teams and everything organized to follow us out. We went Bankai on the Hollow's nest, got everyone we could to safety, but the vapor'd already taken out most of the team. Ukitake an' Rukia only survived b'cause their reiatsu levels are so high. The minute we got back here, knew everyone that had survived was safe, Byakuya just... collapsed."

Renji's voice trembled on the last word, and Ichigo felt the numb pain in his chest pulse again, seeing the man he considered his brother fighting so hard against breaking down, fighting so hard because he was the only one right now who had the strength to stand.

"Byakuya's not..." Renji stopped, shook his head faintly, and released his grasp on his own arm to set one hand on Byakuya's knee; whether he was trying to anchor himself or his partner, Ichigo didn't know.

"Byakuya's not exactly emotionally stable," Renji sighed after a moment, the tremor that had been in his voice sliding down over his shoulders again. "Ukitake's the man who taught him how to love, and Rukia... _fuck_, Ichigo," he whispered, his voice breaking again as he raised his head, enough for Ichigo to see the tears that Renji was fighting not to shed. "If we lose either one of them, we're gonna lose him, too."

* * *

Days passed.

Ichigo stayed by Rukia's side, sleeping in the chair that Renji had given him until Unohana ordered cots moved in for him, Kyouraku, and Byakuya. Renji, his eyes dark-shadowed, left to attend his duties the first morning, only to return within an hour, his expression torn between sheepishness and aggravation, and mutter that his Lieutenant had thrown him out of his own office. He didn't leave after that, other than brief ventures to attend his needs or bring food for the others.

Ichigo and Shunsui ate when they were handed food, never tasting what they consumed, and refused to leave their partner's sides except for absolute necessities. Renji, his face gaunt and his eyes haunted, brought food to Byakuya and watched intently as it was mechanically consumed, brought clothing and toiletries from the mansion and saw that Byakuya bathed and changed. And while the noble moved as he was guided, he did so without speaking, without changing expression, without any suggestion that he was conscious of his surroundings.

Ichigo, for his part, sat beside Rukia's bed, dressed in the shihakusho that Renji lent him, and worried silently as Unohana and Urahara went in and out of the room in a seemingly endless loop, the cycle of their visits interspersed with the sporadic appearances of other officers.

Kiyone and Sentarou, blessedly, had not been on the mission into Rukongai that had taken so many lives; forty-seven members of the Thirteenth Division had been lost to the Hollows that they had gone to fight. The two Third Seats had appeared in the Fourth Division only minutes behind Ichigo, both silent and painfully subdued as they saw their superiors lying motionless on white sheets.

Without a word exchanged between them, the pair had divided their duties - one waiting silently in the room, occupying a chair near the door, while the other returned to the Thirteenth to attend the duties that their Captain and Lieutenant could not take on. Every twelve hours, they would exchange places without a word.

Watching them pass at the doorway, Ichigo realized with some shock that the two 'spastic loons,' as Rukia had once called them, had both grown up.

Dropping his head down to rest against her shoulder, he spent a moment wishing that it hadn't taken a tragedy for that to happen.

"Ichigo!"

Kiyone and Sentarou both yelped - it was the first sound he'd heard from either of them since he'd arrived - scattering to opposite sides of the door as an unfamiliar man burst through.

For a split-second, Ichigo's mind focused on the flame-red hair brushing the man's shoulders and falling in messy bangs over his face, the color of the disarrayed strands nearly identical to Renji's, but Renji was sitting on the foot of Byakuya's cot where he had been for the last two hours, pouring over reports from his Division.

All eyes in the room turned to the intruder, bewilderment keeping any reaction in check, until Renji finally identified him, his voice incredulous.

"_Nova?_"

Ichigo blinked, straightening up slightly. Now that it had been pointed out, he had no question that it _was_ Nova - the feel of the modsoul's reiatsu was clear enough - but the fact that Nova was here in the midst of Seireitei, unmasked and frantic, was enough to bring the numb-sharp pain in his chest back again, throbbing against his heart and twisting his stomach. The modsoul was usually unshakable; if he was this distraught...

"Is Tatsuki -?"

The near-frantic shake of Nova's head silenced him, even before the modsoul gasped out his reply. "Not Tatsuki. Chad."

The numbness vanished, a knife twisting in its place.

Ichigo started to open his mouth, not knowing what he would say, not knowing what he would do, only to snap it shut again when something squeezed his hand.

Glancing down, his eyes wide with astonishment, he met Rukia's steady violet gaze.

"Go," she whispered to him, her voice barely audible over the sudden thrumming of his heart. Her hand, still so pale and delicate against his own, squeezed his fingers again, the strength of her grasp startling after long days of holding her motionless hand in his own.

When he could only stare at her, disbelief and astonishment freezing him in place, she squeezed his hand again, tightly enough that it almost hurt. "_Go_, Ichigo. He needs you."

The kiss he pressed against her lips was frantic, a silent declaration of every heartbeat of pain and terror he had felt ever since the phone rang, and Rukia, weak though she still was, returned it with frantic desperation until Ichigo pulled back, feeling a hot sting behind his eyes that he refused to acknowledge.

Nova seized his wrist without preamble, and the room vanished in a blue-black rush.

For one nauseating second, there was only nothingness; the sudden blaze of sunlight nearly blinded Ichigo when they reappeared on the outskirts of Seireitei, the distance between the Fourth Division and the city walls taken in one wild, disorienting leap. Nova's hand, bruisingly tight around his wrist, yanked Ichigo forward for two stumbling steps before the teleportation whisked him away again.

The disorientation cleared just in time for Ichigo to see the doors of the Senkaimon opening before him, spilling white light across the dusty ground. Three delicate shadows flitted in front of it - '_Three?_' Ichigo wondered briefly, and he barely had time to register the icy reiatsu at his back before Nova's grasp pulled him forward into the blinding light.


	21. Desperation of Proof

A/N: This was the chapter from Hell. There were multiple points over the past weeks that I had to resist the urge to print it out on paper simply so that I could have the pleasure of physically stomping on it, so I hope to fucking gods it's been worth the wait on your end and the irritation on mine.

Warnings: Angst. Vomiting. Religious references.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 21: Desperation of Proof

* * *

The trip through the Senkaimon was nothing but a blur; the blinding light flared again as the doors parted, spilling them out into the real world. Ichigo caught a split-second flash of Shinji's face, eloquent in wordless anguish, before Nova's teleportation swept the world away from him again.

Disorientation made the ground felt as though it was lurching under his feet when they landed. Stumbling, Ichigo caught himself on one knee and one hand, barely conscious of Nova crumpling to his knees on the sidewalk beside him. The spinning swirl of lights from emergency vehicles cast shifting, wild shadows across the scene in front of him; the car, front end crumpled from where it had struck the cracking wall of an old apartment building, the too-still form of the driver slumped over the wheel, her face hidden behind a bloodied curtain of curly, waist-length brown hair.

The passenger-side door of the car had been pried open by the rescue workers, and a quiet, sad-faced woman was even now leading away the young boy who must have been riding in the car, taking him to the back of one of the waiting ambulances although Ichigo could tell at a glance the boy was uninjured.

A flicker of movement beyond the ruined car caught his gaze, and Ichigo turned his head, only just catching the flash of black and white before it vanished from view. Questions flashed across his mind for a split-second, only to be swept away again when he caught sight of Chad, sitting on the sidewalk just beyond the destroyed car, his back against the cracked wall of the building, one leg causally drawn up, his wrists resting on his knee.

Relief swelled through Ichigo for a brief second as he caught Chad's steady gaze over the twisted metal.

Until Chad shifted, revealing the broken chain that hung from his chest.

Ichigo felt the knife twist in his heart.

* * *

Hitsugaya half-stepped, half-stumbled across the threshold of the Senkaimon, the air of the Living World heavy against his chest. It had been too long since he'd set foot here, too long since he'd had reason to.

Raising his head, he met Hirako's gaze as Ichigo and the modsoul vanished in a dull burst of light.

The former Captain's face was a mixture of grief and fury, an expression Hitsugaya had seen all too often following the War, reflected back at him from a thousand gleaming surfaces of ice.

"You felt it, too," Shinji said softly. It wasn't a question; Hitsugaya's presence was answer enough.

Biting back the pulse of his own power, the taste of wintergreen and fear mingling on the back of his tongue, Toushirou asked simply, "Where is Ichimaru?"

* * *

Chad blinked once, his eyes sliding past Ichigo to fix on something else before narrowing sharply, the expression cold and fierce.

Stunned, Ichigo swung to follow his friend's gaze. Just for a moment, before the doors of the ambulance closed, he caught sight of the boy that had walked unharmed from the shattered car, and he felt an icy jolt through his heart when he recognized the child.

The same brown eyes, the same brown hair, set in a face that was decades too young but instantly familiar.

The boy met Ichigo's eyes without hesitation, his mouth twisting in a smile for a split-second before the doors slammed shut.

* * *

The sour scent of nausea bit at Hitsugaya's nose as he pushed the door open, twisting his stomach in sympathetic unease. Silently, he fixed his gaze on the thin form hunched over the white porcelain, still shaking with dry heaves.

It was an odd echo of a thousand mornings with Matsumoto, after one of her cheerful rounds of overindulgence had left her with a rebelling stomach. Wordlessly, Hitsugaya crossed to the battered sink, rinsing out the glass that rested on the shelf beside it and refilling it with cool water. Then, he leaned against the wall and simply waited.

When the last spasms of nausea passed, leaving Gin quiet and trembling, Hitsugaya silently handed him the glass, waiting patiently as Ichimaru rinsed his mouth and spat, rinsed and spat, trying to flush away the taste of bile along with the contents of his stomach.

As the toilet gurgled its way full again, Hitsugaya refilled the glass and passed it back to Gin, who slumped against the wall and carefully accepted it with a shaking hand.

"You felt it," Toushirou said finally, when Gin's tiny, careful sips had emptied half the glass. There was no way Gin should have felt it, no way he should have felt _anything_, not with his powers neutralized. It should have been impossible for him to have sensed the burst of reiatsu those few short minutes ago.

The nod was miniscule and silent, Gin's eyes firmly closed as though hoping that refusing reality would make it unreal.

" 's him," the silver-haired man whispered, curling his knees against his chest. " 's Aizen."

* * *

For a split second, the weight of disbelieving horror pressed down on Ichigo, freezing him where he stood, eyes fixed on the ambulance where the young Aizen sat. Every battle they had fought, every agony and loss they had suffered in the name of defeating him - and all of it was for nothing if Aizen came back to haunt them in human form.

His fingers clenching around Zangetsu's hilt, Ichigo didn't even glance back to the modsoul behind him as he ordered softly, "Nova, go get Orihime."

When he didn't sense the faint distortion that always accompanied Nova's disappearance, he turned a snarl over his shoulder, only to find the modsoul still on his knees on the sidewalk, his head hanging, making no effort to rise.

"Dammit, Nova, I said go get Orihime! She's brought me back from the dead, she can do the same thing for -"

"Ichigo."

The soft voice, the solid weight of Chad's hand on his shoulder - that, somehow, remained unchanged, even with the broken chain swaying from his best friend's chest.

"Chad," Ichigo said, his free hand rising to clench near-desperately around his friend's strong wrist, "he'll get Orihime, she can bring you back -"

"Ichigo," Chad repeated, his voice steady, and Ichigo snapped his mouth shut so abruptly that he bit his tongue, the metallic taste of blood boiling up to join the bitter tangs of fear and loss.

Very gently, Chad settled one big hand on each of Ichigo's shoulders and turned Ichigo to fully face him, lowering his head enough to look his friend directly in the eye. "It's too late."

"_No it isn't!_" The words came out too fast, too sharp, too close to frantic, but Chad simply stared down at Ichigo as though willing his calm into his friend. "Orihime can bring you back, she can save you, she _brought me back _-"

"Ichigo!"

It was the first time Ichigo could ever remember Chad snapping at him; the shock of it froze him beneath Chad's hands, staring blankly at his friend until Chad sighed softly, shaking his head.

"Orihime and Uryuu are still in New York. There's no way Nova could travel that far."

Still... in New York?

The past eternity of days by Rukia's bedside... it had been less than a week?

As the realization slowly sank in, he felt the dull heat of anger begin to spark, somewhere at the bottom of his consciousness. Not intended towards Aizen, this time, but towards his own friends, the friends that should have been there, should have been by the side of those in need -

"They don't know Rukia was injured," Chad said softly, his deep voice breaking through the rising heat and soothing it away. When Ichigo's eyes snapped wide in bewilderment, Chad shook his head slightly, spilling his bangs across his eyes. "Urahara - he called, the day after you left. He said that because Rukia had made it through the night, she would probably recover, and there was no reason to ruin their trip."

Beyond them, the rescue workers gently extracted the body of the woman from behind the wheel. There was no hope for her, just as there was no hope for the mutilated form crushed between the front of the car and the building's wall.

Closing his eyes, Ichigo turned away.

"_It would not have mattered, Ichigo_," Zangetsu offered gently, ghosting a sense of sympathy through Ichigo's reiatsu. "_Whether Orihime was a heartbeat or an ocean away would not have mattered. Chad does not bear the blood of a Shinigami. Once his soul is removed from his body, it cannot be returned."_

'_I can't accept that, old man,' _Ichigo thought back, biting down viciously on his lip to hold back the screams that wanted to tear from his throat. '_I can't stand by and watch my friends die, dammit! The only one that was supposed to die -_'

He cut the thought off before it could finish, but the unvoiced words still echoed within his mind.

"_Was you?_" Zangetsu finished, his tone weighted with sorrow, and Ichigo bit down hard enough to feel blood on his chin, wishing that the small, stabbing pain in his lip would wipe away the agony in his heart and the burning behind his eyes.

"_Shinigami don' pick who dies, King, they jus' keep the souls movin',_" his Hollow pointed out, the mocking laughter Ichigo expected in his voice nowhere to be found. There was a momentary pause before Zangetsu's voice reasserted itself.

"_Ichigo, even the willingness for self-sacrifice cannot stop loss_," the spirit murmured. "_Wars of deceit are not fought with honor._"

At the reminder, Ichigo snapped his gaze back to where the ambulance was, only to find the space empty. Cursing under his breath, he seized Zangetsu's hilt in a white-knuckled grasp and made to leap to the air, only to find Chad's hand on his shoulder, drawing him back.

"Wait, Ichigo," Chad ordered softly, tightening his grip slightly when Ichigo tried to pull from his grasp. "Talk to the Soul Society. They need to know what's happened. They can help you plan, help you fight."

When Ichigo stared back, his breathing hard and his eyes defiant, Chad held his gaze steadily, dark eyes reflecting mournful worry. "I don't want you to get hurt too, Ichigo. If you go chasing Aizen without a plan..."

"_He is right, Ichigo. This is an undertaking that cannot be pursued alone,_" Zangetsu warned him, eyes sympathetic but his voice stern. "_The coming battle must be met with a united force and great forethought, not one man in a blind rage."_

'_If I find Aizen and kill him now -'_

"_You will do nothing more than drive him to his next contingency plan, and his next, and his next," _the blade snapped, Ichigo's own mounting tensions mirrored in the Zanpakutou's voice. "_Death is no more a deterrent for him than it is for you. Greater measures must be taken if he is ever to be truly defeated."_

When Ichigo hesitated, still torn between staying beside his friend and pursuing the one who had taken that friend away, Chad shifted awkwardly, drawing Ichigo's attention back to him.

"Ichigo, could you..." Frowning a little, Chad shook his head slightly. "This is going to sound stupid."

"It won't sound stupid," Ichigo answered automatically, and one corner of Chad's mouth curled up in amusement.

"Help me get to the hospital."

Ichigo blinked. The request wasn't stupid, but it certainly didn't make much sense. It was too late for Chad's body to be saved by any mortal means; what would a journey to the hospital accomplish?

"Not for myself," Chad elaborated, seeing the bewilderment in Ichigo's eyes. "For Tatsuki. She went into labor a little while ago. I was on my way to the hospital when my car broke down."

It was easy enough to complete the story in his own head; Chad had elected to walk the short distance rather than wait on other transportation, and he'd been on his way to the hospital when the car had struck him. Now, his spirit was grounded to the spot where he had died.

"I want to tell her goodbye," Chad said softly, "and see my son before I go on."

Very slowly, Ichigo exhaled the ragged breath he'd been holding, forcing his hand to unclench from Zangetsu's hilt. If Chad's final wishes were to see his wife and family, there was no way Ichigo could deny him that. Not when he would have asked for the same thing.

_Rukia's going to laugh_, he thought, in a brief flash of bitter humor. _I kept telling her there wasn't a chance of Tatsuki going into labor this soon. _

The thought of Rukia brought another flood of emotions to him; the exhaustion of fear and worry, the relief he'd felt at the sight of her open eyes, and the vague, dim-burning beginning of anger behind it; Urahara had never given him any assurance of Rukia's recovery, regardless of what had been said to Chad.

He wasn't sure how much of that played out across his face, but Chad tilted his head slightly, his eyes inquisitive, and Ichigo only shook his head in response.

Aloud, he said simply simply, "I understand."

* * *

The top floor of Karakura General was reserved for high-profile patients; the wealthy, the famous, those with weight behind their names. Although Ichigo himself hadn't paid that much attention to Dark Soul, the band Chad played with - the demands on his time didn't leave him much opportunity to attend concerts - he knew, if in a very general sense, how successful they'd been. He got copies of all of their albums from Chad or Mizuiro, helped work the patrol schedules around Chad's being gone on tour, admired every addition to Chad's ever-growing collection of guitars. The latest one, he remembered vaguely, had cost about as much as a small car and had once been owned by someone famous, although he couldn't recall exactly who.

And even though Ichigo knew that Dark Soul had spent the past half a decade topping Japan's music charts, it didn't really strike home until he was sliding carefully through the doors of the elevator and into the top-floor reception area, following Chad's directions to Tatsuki's room.

At the end of the hall, he could see Mizuiro standing by the windows, his mouth set in a grim line as he typed furiously on his cellphone, and the frontman from the band - Alec, Ichigo remembered, having met the singer a few times when the band was in Karakura - was slumped in one of the waiting-room chairs, his face buried in his hands and dye-streaked black hair falling across his fingertips.

Ichigo ducked unseen past the nurse's station, Chad and an exhausted Nova trailing in his wake. Nobody had reacted to Nova's presence, here or at the scene of the crash, and Ichigo had eventually realized that the gigai the modsoul wore was somehow invisible to normal eyes.

Which was a large part of the reason he was so surprised when Alec raised his head and locked eyes on the three of them, not looking in the least bit surprised.

"Chad, Nova, Ichigo, hey," the singer said softly, pushing his bangs out of his red-rimed eyes. The black eyeliner he always wore was streaked down his cheeks, but he made no move to wipe the telltale lines away.

"Alec," Chad answered, nodding in response, just as calmly as his frontman. "Is Tatsuki - ?"

"She's fine, man. You've got yourself a healthy baby boy. Hell of a set of lungs on him, too," Alec added with a watery grin. "Gonna have to teach him to sing when he grows up a little."

Chad smiled faintly, patted the singer's shoulder, and quietly walked a few strides down the hall before slipping through a closed door bearing the name 'Yasutora T.' on the card. Alec turned in his seat to watch him go, not bothering to hide the shaking edges of his own smile.

"Thanks for bringing him," he said softly, and Ichigo shook his head for a moment as the singer turned back to him, dark eyes regarding him steadily from under the silky black-and-white fall of bangs. "It means a lot, that he can at least see his son before he goes."

There was a long moment of silence before Ichigo fought through the numbly echoing despair shrouding his mind to muster the words, "You can see us."

It was hardly a question, but it earned him a faint nod in response anyway. "We can see ghosts," Alec answered with a shrug. "All of us - the whole band. I guess it's part of what brought us together, even why we let Mizuiro manage us without an argument. We've known about Shinigami and ghosts and all of that from the beginning." Glancing over Ichigo's shoulder, he added firmly, "We know about modsouls, too. Nova, sit down, man. You look wrecked."

The modsoul nodded a wordless response, staggering forward a few steps to collapse into the seat beside Alec, letting his head fall backwards against the wall, his eyes falling closed.

It struck Ichigo, as he stared down at the singer, just how much he and Chad had grown apart over the past few years - he barely knew the man sitting before him, one of Chad's best friends. The few times Ichigo had met the band, he'd never guessed, never sensed, and never thought to ask whether any of them had any spiritual powers. His own life, his own duties to his school and family and the Soul Society, had kept him from getting to know any of the band members - kept him from that part of Chad's life.

Not so long ago, he and Chad had been one another's right arms, best friends and battle partners, guarding each other's backs. And now, he stood helpless and silent, before a man that probably knew Chad better than he did, had probably been a better friend to him over the past few years.

Ichigo had never realized that he and Chad had begun to drift apart. Not until he looked back, and realized it had happened years ago.

Around the regrets clogging his throat, Ichigo managed to muster a soft, "You're taking this well." It was an inane, pointless observation, but it broke the silence that was threatening to overwhelm them.

Alec shrugged faintly in response, rubbing away a stray tear with the edge of his thumb. His eyeliner had left black marks on the edges of his fingers, colored hollow bruises beneath his eyes that made him look haunted and ghostly under the fluorescent lights.

"No other way to take it right now," the singer answered with a shaky laugh. "Gotta just... hang on for the ride, really. Need to stay strong for Tatsuki, the guys, the fans. I'll break down when it's over," he added, years of practice in controlling his voice making the tremor in it almost unnoticeable, then jerked his thumb towards the door. "You should go in. Tatsuki'll want to see you."

Not knowing what else to do, Ichigo went.

* * *

Tatsuki's face was tear-streaked but defiant, her jaw set as she cradled her newborn son to her chest. A digital video camera lay waiting on the nightstand beside her bed - she would have to make a statement to appease the vultures of the press and public, a statement about the love she and Chad had shared, about their new son, about the band, about being widowed before she was fucking thirty on the same day she brought their son into the world.

_Widowed_. Gods. All the time he'd spent fighting, the number of times he'd nearly and actually given up his own life, swearing his vows to Rukia and watching the others swear their vows in turn, the word had never occurred to him. And now Tatsuki, the strongest woman he knew, had lost her husband, her child's father, the man she loved.

Tatsuki was a widow.

"I'm sorry," Ichigo whispered, looking between them - Tatsuki in the bed, while Chad stood by her side, one hand settled gently on her shoulder. "I'm so -"

"Stop apologizing, you idiot," Tatsuki snapped at him, her voice pitched low and rough with tears. "None of this is your fault, Ichigo, and if you even think of blaming yourself, I'll kick your ass."

Despite himself, Ichigo couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Yes, ma'am," he answered, feeling laughter and tears fighting in his throat and trying to bite them both back. His reply dragged a weak smile from Tatsuki and a faint one from Chad, though, so he considered it worth the effort.

* * *

A few minutes later, Mizuiro tapped softly on the door before opening it, and Ichigo blinked in surprise when he saw Renji striding in. He'd felt the Senkaimon open again, and he'd known that Seireitei would be sending along other Shinigami, but he hadn't expected Renji, not with the lives that still hung in balance at the Fourth Division.

"Renji?" Tatsuki's voice was wary when she spoke, her gaze fixed uneasily on the red-haired Captain. Numb as he still was, it took Ichigo a moment to realize why, but he almost recoiled when he felt it.

Renji was furious.

His shoulders were set and stiff, hands tightly fisted and jaw clenched. Even with the limiter restraining his power, the anger rode Renji's reiatsu like a tidal wave looking for a place to strike, fierce and unrestrained. The taste of it was a remnant of the Renji that Ichigo had first met, first fought; the wild, untamed man that had slowly vanished into the quieter, nobler Captain he had become.

At the sound of Tatsuki's voice, though, Renji looked up, and the heat of anger behind his eyes faded quickly when he caught sight of their faces.

"Renji, what's going on? Rukia and Ukitake -?" Ichigo demanded sharply, hating himself for the alarm that bled into his voice, but Renji shook his head slightly.

"They're fine. Urahara finally pulled an antidote outta his ear, Rukia's in recovery an' Ukitake's stabilized," came the terse reply, before Renji stopped and visibly gathered himself, taking a deep breath and releasing it again in a sigh. "Sorry, guys. Ran into some shit gettin' here s'all. Didn' mean t' take it out on ya," he murmured, contorting his mouth into a painful approximation of a smile. " 's not your fault you're caught up in this."

"Caught up in what, exactly?" Tatsuki demanded, sharply enough that the baby fussed, shifting in her arms, and Ichigo and Chad exchanged a look over her head, weighing how much needed to be said.

"It's Seireitei's problem," Renji answered softly, the forced smile falling away from his face, Rukongai accent shuttered away as the masks nobility had taught him finally slid into place. "You shouldn't be involved."

"You know, they keep telling us that," she frowned. "They keep telling us that we mere mortals should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore the spirits, let you almighty Shinigami do all the work, because we shouldn't be involved. And yet somehow, even with all of your damn programs and training rotations, we _mere mortals_ been fighting Hollows for years now, and _my husband is now dead_ thanks to Seireitei's _problems_," Tatsuki spat the last words at him, her mouth curling in a contemptuous snarl, "so don't tell me I shouldn't fucking be _involved_, Abarai Renji!"

The Renji of ten years ago would have taken her words as a challenge, and argued the matter to the point of absurdity out of sheer stubbornness. The Renji of ten months ago would have laughed and teased Tatsuki out of her temper, unwilling to leave her with a scowl on her face.

The Renji of now simply turned his head away.

"Sorry, Tatsuki," he said simply, and looked beyond her to where Chad stood, watching him with unreadable eyes. "I've come to take Chad on."

The words snapped through the haze in Ichigo's mind like a bolt of lightning, the vague hope he'd been clinging to, of Chad staying with them vanishing behind the shock. "Wh - you've what?" The question burst from Ichigo before he could stop it, and the look Renji shot him in response was almost pitying.

"Chad can't stay in the Living Realm, Ichigo," Renji answered, his voice blankly level. "They gave me orders to send his soul on."

"No!" Ichigo shouted, slashing one hand through the air before him. "No, dammit, not this soon! Uryuu and Orihime, Kiego, fuck, _anyone_ - he hasn't had a chance to say goodbye -"

"And I can't change my damned orders!" Renji snapped back, his fists clenching at his sides. "The influence of Chad's powers could drive him to Hollowfy to quickly for us to risk allowing him that kind of time! Urahara -"

"Don't fucking quote Urahara at me, Renji, not when we both know how much he lies," Ichigo snarled, dropping one hand to Zangetsu's hilt.

"_Stop it_."

The words, low and sharp, stopped both Renji and Ichigo in their tracks - Ichigo half-prepared to draw, Renji with his eyes flashing fury and his fists clenched. Both men froze as Chad stepped between them, folding his arms across his chest with a soft rattle of the chain.

"Stop it, both of you," Chad repeated, his tone uncompromising, and Renji sighed softly as he straightened up and stepped back, quietly relenting. Ichigo hesitated a moment longer before finally echoing the movement, letting his hand slide from Zangetsu's hilt to fall limply at his side.

"I know I can't stay," Chad said softly, into the suddenly echoing silence. "I've met my son and said goodbye to Tatsuki. I'll have to be content with that." Glancing back to his oldest friend, he added softly, "Please help look after my son, Ichigo."

"I will," Ichigo whispered, the words barely escaping through the strangling tightness of his throat. "We all will. You know that."

"I do," Chad answered, a faint smile on his face. "But it's nice to hear."

Sighing softly, Renji reached up and clapped Chad's shoulder. "C'mon. Your band's outside, they want t' say goodbye to ya before y' go."

Nodding, Chad allowed himself to be steered towards the door, but he stopped abruptly a few paces from it, turning back towards the center of the room. "My son," he said softly, and Ichigo raised his head, no longer able to care about the tears on his cheeks.

"My son," Chad repeated softly. "His name is Ichiro."

And, turning away, he and Renji slipped through the door and vanished, leaving Ichigo and Tatsuki alone with tears and memory.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Ichigo, I'm afraid it's quite impossible."

"Why is it impossible?" Ichigo snapped, frustration evident. "Chad's reiatsu signature is unique because of his Hollow abilities, he should be easy to find!"

When the only response to that was a raised eyebrow, Ichigo raked his hands through his hair, exhaling noisily in frustration. "Look, I've accepted that he can't return to the Living World -"

"I don't think you have, actually," came the gentle interruption, "or you probably wouldn't have begun questioning me on this while I was still in my sickbed."

"I -" Ichigo paused, blinked as he considered the words, then snapped his mouth shut and sighed softly. "I'm sorry, Ukitake-taichou. I'll go -"

"Nonsense!" Ukitake countered immediately, waving a dismissive hand. "I wasn't complaining about your presence, just making an observation. But what I said was true, Ichigo - finding Chad's soul again is likely to be quite impossible, for a number of reasons. Even with his very unique reiatsu signature, the sheer size of Rukongai makes searching for a single soul a prohibitively difficult task. Ordinarily, I would be willing to offer the services of my people to assist in searching for him, but..."

Trailing off, Ukitake shrugged eloquently, and almost managed to disguise his wince at the action. Ichigo nodded quietly, his face sympathetic. The Thirteenth Division was still struggling to reorganize after the losses it had suffered nine days ago, and although Rukia had returned to limited duties, Ukitake was likely to remain in the hospital for weeks to come.

Even without their difficulties, the conformation of Aizen's return had thrown the Soul Society into an uproar. An assassination force, led by Soifon and Yoruichi, had gone into the Living World to seek out the reborn would-be-god, and found... nothing. Following the course of the ambulance that had taken him from the scene of the crash had led them to the vehicle - sunken into the river a few miles from the hospital, both attendant and driver dead, and no trace whatsoever of Aizen.

Ichigo had lived the past three days in a whirlwind, traveling between the Worlds on what seemed like an hourly basis as he tried to support the still-weak Rukia and a cracked but defiantly unbroken Tatsuki. She had left the hospital the morning after Chad's death, politely but firmly refusing Ryuuken's offer of an extended stay in the hospital and returning home with Nova and her son.

Orihime was with her now - she and Uryuu had caught the first flight out of New York after learning of Chad's death, and Orihime hadn't even taken the time to stop home before going to her friend's side. Between her best friend and the modsoul, he knew that Tatsuki was in good hands, and had faith that she would be all right... somehow.

"I'm happy to search Rukongai on my own," Ichigo pointed out. It would take time, there was no question, but if it meant he could see Chad again, even from a distance, know his friend was safe -

"Ichigo, I'm afraid there is no guarantee that Chad is even _in_ Rukongai," Ukitake said gently, his gaze fixed earnestly on Ichigo's own. He waited out the young man's incoherent disbelief with characteristic patience, then quietly settled back into his pillows to explain.

"Seireitei is not the entirety of the Spirit Realm, Ichigo. Imagine, if you will, a... a bubble, or a shell, surrounding your Living World. Every country, every culture, every belief system, has its own version of the afterlife and those who protect it. Seireitei and the Gotei are the manifestation of the beliefs of our country - the destination of those souls who have lived their lives by the teachings of Shinto and Buddhism.

"I know that Chad spent much of his childhood in Mexico," Ukitake continued, his voice soft. "The culture and religion there are vastly different from ours, as is their afterlife. It is... entirely possible that Chad's soul returned to where his beliefs lay, in the country he was raised in."

Ichigo shook his head slightly, the silence in the room touching them both like a physical pain. Somehow, despite the years they'd spent battling their way through heavens and hells, the discussion of personal beliefs had never come up. "I don't know... I don't know what Chad believed," Ichigo admitted, shame flushing his cheekbones at the admission. It astonished him, now, realizing just how little he knew about the man who had been his best friend. "The Mexican afterlife, Ukitake, how can I -"

"You cannot."

The words, though compassionately spoken, were unyielding. "There is nothing more you can do, Ichigo, but accept this and move on."

* * *

When the door slid shut behind Ichigo a half an hour later, Ukitake turned his gaze to the pale ceiling, blinking furiously to keep the tears in his eyes from falling.

"Why?" he whispered, clenching one hand into a trembling fist that he drove against the mattress beside his hip. "Why, damn you? Why do you force me to lie to him?"

* * *

Chad's public memorial was something the likes of which Ichigo had never imagined.

Tens of thousands of mourners crowded the streets of Karakura, and oceans of flowers and photographs appeared seemingly overnight at any place that was significant in Chad's history; at the apartment building where Tatsuki still lived, at the recording studio where Dark Soul worked, even Tatsuki's dojo.

With a crowd of people that massive, it was hard to believe that the term 'peaceful' could be applied. But they were, strangely, precisely that. They gathered outside the temple where the private service was being held, quietly chanting the mantras and prayers while the memorial went on within.

After the service was over, the remaining members of Dark Soul gathered on the steps of the temple, and Alec sang about memory and loss with an agonizing beauty that reduced everyone in the crowd to tears.

To the mourners gathered in that mass of people, it must have seemed as though Alec was gazing off into nothingness as he sang that afternoon, his dark eyes fixed somewhere beyond the faces of the people before him.

Those who stood on the steps of the temple with him, though, knew the truth; all of them could see the black-clad figures who stood in silent ranks, heads bowed and hands on the hilts of their Zanpakutou as they paid their respects to their fallen friend.

* * *

That night, Ichigo led Rukia back to their house; empty and quiet, with their children staying with Yuzu at the Clinic - and let the pain and desperation of the past days finally take its toll. Rukia hugged him as he broke, then quietly set about putting him back together with sharp words and soft kisses, until Ichigo pressed her into their bed and desperately sought to prove that they were still alive.

Nine months later, Rukia gave birth to a baby boy. Ichigo named him Sado.

* * *

O

* * *

A/N: Points to anyone who figures out who I named Alec after! (Hint 1: bass playing is involved, and Hint 2: if you've been following my tweets, you have a decent start on knowing.)

Given the exceedingly fucked-up nature of my posting schedule (which I am attempting to get back under control, along with the rest of my life), I do recommend checking in on my Twitter account (LostInHeadSpace) for updates on my writing. You're also welcome to PM/email me to ask/encourage/nag about updates, whichever you see fit.


	22. Blood on Blood

A/N: (is sick and tired of being tired and sick)

For those of you who read the chapter pointing at the changes instituted by the newest Data Book - yes, I am aware that Soifon is now technically Sui-Feng. And no, I am not altering my stories to comply with that. She was Soifon when I started watching Bleach and I will continue to refer to her as such. And frankly, with all due respect to Kubo-sensei, I think most of the spelling changes instituted by the new Book are flatly absurd.

Chapter title taken from the Bon Jovi song of the same name. No actual connection is intended or implied, although if you haven't heard the song, you should certainly listen to it, because it's amazing.

TIMELINE: About two weeks after Chad's funeral.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 22: Blood on Blood

* * *

The largest ward in the Fourth Division, routinely used as triage staging, was no stranger to raised voices, raised reiatsu, and raised tempers. Anything the weary walls had weathered before, though, paled in comparison to the tempest that stormed within them now.

" - an' y' sent me through t' drag Chad's soul away from his friends, from his family, on some trumped-up fucking excuse 'bout his Hollow powers -"

"An excuse which I will be blamed for," Urahara interrupted Renji's tirade, his voice level but his eyes dangerous. "I don't object to accepting the blame for my own misdeeds, but I don't appreciate being anyone's patsy."

"Nor do I," Ukitake snapped, leaning a little further forward in his bed, his usually gentle face stormy. "Your orders forced me to lie to a young man whose friendship and trust I value a great deal, Hikifune, and that is not something I can easily forgive."

Standing at the far side of the room beside Yamamoto's chair, Hikifune spread her hands helplessly, her eyes tired behind the narrow slit in her veil. "I wish I could apologize. But the orders I gave to you came directly from the Spirit King, and I am as powerless to defy them as you."

That earned a snort from Zaraki, lounging on the floor next to the closed and kidou-sealed door. "Like fuck we're powerless. What's he gonna do if we decide t' ignore him, anyway?"

"Have you charged with open treason, assassinated, and replaced with a member of the Royal Guard," Yoruichi answered, drumming her heels restlessly against the side of the bed she was sitting on. Soifon, standing beside her, shot her mistress a startled glance, but quiet nods from the older Captains in the room, as well as the Guard, confirmed Yoruichi's words.

Hikifune sighed softly, looking around the room to meet the eyes of each Captain in turn. The meeting was being held here at the Fourth in deference to Ukitake's still-fragile condition, the first time in years beyond recollection that a sanctioned Captain's meeting had happened outside of the First Division.

Then again, it was the first time in memory that a matter like this had come up, either.

"I do not need to tell you what Aizen's return means, for this world and all worlds," Hikifune said, exhaustion clear in her tone. "The King is already weakening - any threat that is strong enough to reach past his Guards will be his end. That is beyond debate."

"How fortunate for him, then, that Ichigo isn't the type to seize power," mused Urahara, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and ignoring the hisses of indrawn breath throughout the room.

"Kisuke, if you so much as _think_ of inciting that boy into open rebellion -"

"Now, now, Kirio-san, would I do a thing like that?"

"Yes, you would," Hikifune snapped back, one hand drifting ever-so-slightly towards the hilt of her Zanpakutou.

"Fortunately, Kirio, as he said, Ichigo has no desire to take the throne, especially as busy as he is with those two charming children of his," Kyouraku interrupted lightly, his smile placating.

"And if I'm not very much mistaken, a third on the way," Ukitake added, a faint cough escaping him with the last word. "It seems to me that Kuchiki's reiatsu signature has altered again."

Several eyebrows were raised in Byakuya and Renji's direction, but the pair remained silent - Renji still fuming, Byakuya inscrutable as ever.

"So," Kyouraku continued blithely, "while Kurosaki keeps himself occupied raising the next generation of the royal family, perhaps we should focus our attention on defending the current one?"

"Wartime training procedures are being put into effect," Yoruichi spoke up, her legs still swinging restlessly. "Double drills and patrols for all Divisions, accelerated courses for advanced Academy students, and tripling the number of Shinigami stationed in all red zones in the Living World."

"Including Karakura, I would hope," Byakuya murmured dryly. It was the first he had spoken since the meeting began, and the soft rasp of his voice, little used over the past week, was enough to startle several of the other Captains.

"Karakura's patrols were quadrupled," Urahara answered wearily. "Not that it seems necessary now; Hollow activity there has decreased to virtually nothing since Sado-kun's death," he sighed, raising a hand to rub his thumb and forefinger against his eyes, creasing his eyelids and the bruise-dark circles etched beneath them.

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Was that question rhetorical, Hisagi-san?"

"Not really, no," Shuuhei answered, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to thwart the headache pounding behind his eyes. "If the Hollows are being drawn back deliberately, it could mean that Aizen is foregoing his current attacks - or that he's overextended himself and is regrouping for the next wave."

"The calm before the storm," rumbled Komamura, and received a round of quiet nods in response.

"Unfortunately, we have no means to predict what Aizen's next move will be," Ukitake sighed, stifling another soft cough as he settled back against his pillows. "Hirako-san has no insight to offer into his former subordinate, Hinamori -"

"Need not even be mentioned," growled Hitsugaya from his place on the opposite wall, hands fisting in the sleeves of his kosode. "If she couldn't see him for the monster he was after he tried to kill her, _twice_, there's no way she could have a relevant contribution."

Komamura, sitting with his back against the wall beside the young Captain, flicked his ears curiously in Hitsugaya's direction at the venom in his voice.

"That, and you don't want your Momo-chan drawn into this," Kyouraku added, puckering his lips coyly. Hitsugaya's mouth curled into a deepening snarl, and the temperature in the room began to drop.

"Hitsugaya, control yourself! Shunsui, act your age! This is no time for pointless bickering!" Yamamoto barked at the pair of them, earning a vaguely contrite look from his oldest student and a grunt from his youngest Captain.

"Ichimaru."

The sound of Soifon's voice brought a momentary silence to the room. Like Byakuya, she had spoken little at recent meetings. The Second Division had lost face under her command after their failure to keep Renji's would-be assassin imprisoned, and again when they had found no trace of Aizen in the Living World not even an hour after Chad's death.

Shame had driven her to surrender more and more of her duties in the Division to Yoruichi, leaving the young woman who had taken the position so forcefully upon the Shihoin princess's departure a Captain more in name than in fact.

"Ichimaru," Soifon repeated firmly, her eyes narrowing slightly when Kira frowned. "He was Aizen's right had for most of a century. If anyone has an insight into that traitor's mind, it's him."

"No," Yoruichi sighed, shaking her head. "The interrogation he was subjected to after the War broke him as thoroughly as he will ever be broken. We learned everything that he knew about Aizen then."

"Yoruichi-sama!" Her expression disbelieving, Soifon spun to face her former mentor. "There has always been more information to be gained from him! His lack of cooperation is what has held us back this long! Harsher tactics -"

"Will only drive him into silence, Soifon," Yoruichi answered patiently, her expression tired. "I've been doing interrogations longer than you've been alive, I know when someone has given everything they know. Gin has no knowledge of Aizen's future plans, and we have nothing more to gain from him."

"If I am not mistaken," Hikifune interrupted, quelling Soifon's response, "Hitsugaya-taichou has been able to develop something of a rapport with Ichimaru?"

"I have, yes," the young Captain answered, shifting uncomfortably when every eye in the room settled on him. "I bring him news about his daughter and Rangiku, and he seems to have placed some measure of trust in me because of it."

"Very well," Yamamoto sighed, rapping Ryuujin Jakka against the floor. "Hitsugaya, use that trust to gain what you can from Ichimaru, if there is anything more to be gained. The rest of you, return to your duties."

"With due respect, Soutaichou-sama, I must object," Soifon snapped, stepping forward. Yamamoto only raised one heavy white eyebrow in response, glancing momentarily to Yoruichi in question. The Flash Goddess turned narrowed eyes on her former protege, but did not object.

"Speak, then," Yamamoto grumbled, gesturing wearily with one hand.

"I do not believe that Ichimaru has surrendered all of the information he possesses concerning Aizen. He was aware of Aizen's rebirth in the human realm from the time Aizen's new form was still in the womb, and convinced Hitsugaya to keep that information from the Gotei -"

"How many times do I have to tell you I made that decision myself?"

" - and by reports was able to sense the surge of Aizen's reiatsu that alerted us to his return -"

"We believe that reiatsu surge is what enabled his mother's vehicle to fatally damage Sado-san's body," Urahara put in, motioning between himself and Unohana. "Given Sado's natural resilience - "

"Stop trying to distract from the point, Urahara!" Soifon snapped, only to be silenced by Yoruichi's bark of "That's _enough_, Soifon!"

"Ichimaru may have betrayed us first, but he betrayed Aizen last. That won't be forgiven." Hitsugaya growled to the room at large. "He has nothing to gain by hiding things from us."

The meeting was dismissed moments later, each of the Captains filing through the door and back to their duties - save for Ukitake, who was helped back to his room by a worriedly-hovering Kyouraku. Yoruichi stalked from the room stiff-legged and angry at Urahara's side, not directing a word or glance behind her to where Soifon stood, head down, in the corner of the room.

"Nothing to gain, Hitsugaya?" she murmured into the empty room, fists clenching tightly enough that her fingernails gouged into her palms. "Perhaps he has to be reminded of how much he has to lose."

* * *

"Are you all right, Matsumoto?"

"I suppose so, Captain," came the quiet response, but the melancholy expression didn't fade from her face.

With a vague grunt of irritation, Hitsugaya dropped one of the two water bottles he was carrying into her lap and uncapped the other one for himself. Leaning back against the trunk of the towering tree, he let his eyes follow Matsumoto's line of vision down to the Academy's training fields. The students were sparring outside today, fast-moving clumps of white-and-red and white-and-blue vibrant against the green grass.

It wasn't hard to pick out the small group of students that held his Lieutenant's focus. Haru, loud and brash enough to put any seasoned Eleventher to shame, was calling plenty of attention to the threesome sparring in the corner of the field just on his own. The past three years had done wonders for both him and his sister, the Rukongai orphans sponsored by Renji and Byakuya. His sister Ko, quiet and sardonic and startlingly intelligent, was a perfect complement to her brother's unchecked brute-force style.

Watching them now, Hitsugaya found his eyebrows crawling up his forehead in surprise. It had been a while now since he'd watched any of the group in action - since good behavior and his sister's tutelage had moved Haru up to the first class last year, if he remembered right - and they had improved drastically in that time.

Haru's swing, hard and fast, would have opened his sister at the waist if she had moved a second slower to dodge the tip of his blade. As his blade arced past her, though, he swung it over his shoulder, using it to channel a burst of pure reiatsu - nothing so refined as kidou, simply raw power - to deflect a strike aimed at the back of his head. The momentary distraction cost him, however; the instant he turned his attention away from Ko, she spit out a cry of 'Bakudo four, _Hainawa_!'

"Clever," Hitsugaya remarked, somewhat grudgingly, as the crawling rope - admittedly weakened by the lack of incantation, but perfectly respectable for a third-year student - burst from Ko's palms to entangle her brother's ankles, dropping him face-first into the ground at the feet of the third member of their group.

Matsumoto Kin barely glanced down as Haru landed before her, her eyes flickering to him only long enough to judge his position as she danced around him before her attention and blade were once again focused on Ko.

Hitsugaya did not have fond memories of these multi-way spars from his short time at the Academy - his smaller size had always put him at a disadvantage among his group, regardless of who he was teamed with. He'd considered himself fortunate that his kendo skills - and his bond with Hyorinmaru - had made him one of the best swordsmen at the Academy, a title Kin seemed to be pressing for this year.

"She's gotten better," he said simply, watching as Kin pressed her advantage against Ko. It was an understatement; Kin fought like someone who had been wielding a blade for a hundred years, every movement swift and precise, every shift and lunge calculated, until the harried Ko was forced to throw up a _Seki_ shield to block a blow that would have gone cleanly through her shoulder.

"She's been meditating a lot," Rangiku nodded, watching closely as her daughter staggered back a step, struggling to shake off the numbing effects of the shield. "Her Zanpakutou spirit has been speaking to her, and they seem to work well together."

That was, Hitsugaya reflected, as much of an understatement as 'she's gotten better.'

"How far has her meditation come? Has she discovered her blade's name yet?"

"Not yet, no, but it'll be soon," Matsumoto replied, eyes still on the field as Haru finally kicked off the remnants of his sister's kidou, rolling back to his feet and taking a leaping stride towards Kin. The girl spun in place, keeping her shoulder towards Ko, and raised her blade towards Haru, the gesture fast and instinctive, but -

She stumbled. Stumbled over nothing, her eyes losing focus as she staggered a half-step, barely keeping her balance on the smooth field. Even from this distance, it wasn't difficult to make out the startled, listening expression on her face, or the disbelieving glance she shot at the blade in her hand.

"Soon, you think?" Hitsugaya parroted with no small amount of sarcasm, as Rangiku grinned ecstatically up at him for a moment before turning her attention back to her daughter.

Even over the confused disarray of reiatsu from the dozens of students on the field, Hitsugaya and Matsumoto both felt the sudden shift in the girl's energy, the rising reiatsu of a Zanpakutou spirit mingling with Kin's cool stone-scented power.

The taste of the blade's strength was as chilling as blood at the back of Hitsugaya's tongue, and twice as familiar.

"No!" Matsumoto gasped, her face going from flushed with exuberance to shock-white with disbelief. "It's impossible -"

"When has impossibility stopped anyone here?" he snapped back, even as his hand found Hyorinmaru's hilt. They were both too far away to hear Kin's voice, but both of them could read the familiar words on her lips.

'_Ikorose, Shinsou.'_

A burst of Flashstep -

- and the shock of impact radiated up Hitsugaya's arms. Swearing softly, he tightened his grip on Hyorinmaru's hilt, bracing his Zanpakutou against the pressure of Shinsou's tip. As close as a breath behind him, Haru stared in astonishment, both at the Captain that had appeared so suddenly in front of him, and the extended blade that had been blocked only inches from impaling his right shoulder.

Kin's wide, terrified eyes met Hitsugaya's gaze over the length of Shinsou's blade, a split-second before the hilt dropped from her shaking hands. The Zanpakutou had already retracted to a wakizashi by the time it struck the ground.

"I -"

The word was gasped out, the clear horror in her voice mirrored in her expression as she staggered backwards, away from her Zanpakutou and her bewildered teammates. "I didn't mean -"

Her horror was genuine; there was no question of that. Which meant she either knew nothing about the blade's powers, or the spirit within it had deceived her. "It's all right," Hitsugaya said softly, sheathing Hyorinmaru in a careful motion. "No harm done."

All around them, the students and instructors had stopped, the twin shocks of Shinsou's release and Hitsugaya's appearance freezing them in their places. Already, though, the whispers were beginning to start; he heard Ichimaru's name hissed and grimaced.

"Take your blade," he snapped, and was startled when Kin did so without argument, sheathing the sword at her side. It took him barely a heartbeat to realize the truth; she had no idea of the Zanpakutou's history.

He made his decision in an instant. Seizing her wrist, he made the leap into Flashstep, sweeping them both away.

* * *

If Urahara was surprised by Hitsugaya and Kin's sudden appearance on the doorstep of the Twelfth Division, he didn't show it. He opened the door to them without question, and did not bat an eye when Hitsugaya flatly demanded access to the video archives.

He led them through the mazelike hallways of the Division without comment, the clack-clack of his wooden geta echoing off the high ceilings like a clockwork heartbeat. The echo of Hitsugaya's lighter, swifter footsteps danced through the rhythm of Kisuke's own, a soft counterpoint to the harsh rhythm.

Kin, trailing behind the two Captains, walked without a sound.

* * *

"You'll want his combat recordings as well, I presume?" Urahara asked quietly, once the three of them had reached the cavernous archive room. Hitsugaya nodded wordlessly, his eyes reflecting weary gratitude as the older Captain's fingers raced across the keyboard, bringing up a list of files.

"I believe you'll find everything you need here," Urahara said simply, stepping back and drawing out the chair that sat unused before the monitors. "Feel free to take as long as you need. When you're finished, just use the intercom by the door to call for someone to show you out."

Hitsugaya nodded sharply in response, dropping into the seat and scanning over the list of video footage. Every Captain and Vice-Captain who had served within the past century was captured here, both in coldly clinical staged demonstrations of their abilities, and in the ferocious midst of battle, captured by the cameras the Twelfth had seeded throughout Seireitei over the years. He saw the tags on one of the files - his own battle with Gin, the night of Aizen's defection - and skipped past it. There were some memories here still too tender to touch.

Hesitating by the doorway, Urahara gazed back into the room for a long moment, his eyes flickering between the intensely focused Hitsugaya and the quietly uneasy Kin. "If there is anything else you need from me, please don't hesitate to call," he said finally, turning away to slip through the open door. "And congratulations on achieving your Shikai, Kin-san."

The door closed on her startled expression.

* * *

Settling further into the chair before the monitor, Hitsugaya gestured Kin to his side and keyed through the list. "What do you know about your father?"

"He's a traitor," Kin replied, all hesitation gone, her voice like frozen steel. "What more do I need to know?"

"The truth might be a good place to start." When this earned him only a startled look, he sighed softly and turned away from the keyboard. "Tell me what you know about Aizen."

She hesitated, wary eyes weighing his intentions for a few slow seconds before she carefully reached behind her to draw up another chair. "I know what they teach us at the Academy," she answered quietly, sinking down into the padded leather and staring at the floor just beyond her toes. "That he stole the research from Urahara-taichou to create the Hogyoku and used it to experiment on Rukongai citizens and other Shinigami. That he used it against his Captain and the ranking officers of two other Divisions to gain power for himself, Tousen Kaname, and Ichimaru Gin. How he used his powers of illusion to fake his own death and frame Kuchiki-fukutaichou for capital crimes. While he was presumed dead, he killed the Central Forty-Six and began the War. He was defeated by a joint effort between the Gotei, the Visoreds, and Kurosaki Ichigo."

"_A thousand pretty little lies,"_ Hyorinmaru sighed at the back of Hitsugaya's mind. _"They will not tell these children that Aizen discovered the Hogyoku himself, or what guilt weighs upon Urahara's shoulders."_

'_It's easier to teach in shades of black and white, Hyorinmaru,' _Hitsugaya answered, too exhausted to feel as angry about it as he should._ 'Gray requires too much thought.'_

"_And the distinction requires a conscience,_" the dragon rumbled back, curling more tightly around itself as though wishing to shut out the world. "_It is something they feel beyond their capabilities to teach. The Hollows are evil and must die. The Shinigami are good and must prevail. Simplistic. Easy."_

"Foolish," Hitsugaya answered aloud, and shook his head slightly when Kin tilted her head at him in question. "What do you know about your father's part in the War?"

The line of Kin's mouth tightened, and a flash of sullen anger sparked through her reiatsu before she pulled herself back under control. "He defected from the Seireitei to follow Aizen and serve his cause. He fought in the Battle of Karakura and nearly took the life of Sarugaki Hiyori."

When she stopped, chewing on the edge of her tongue and frowning at the floor, Hitsugaya leaned forward slightly in his chair to catch her attention. "During the battle, Gin took Kurosaki Ichigo as an opponent, so that Aizen would not. He judged Kurosaki's strength insufficient to face Aizen, and attempted to scare him from the battle to save Kurosaki's life. Gin then attempted to kill Aizen himself, and nearly lost his own life in the attempt. The truth, Kin, is that a hundred years before Aizen opened our eyes to his true nature, Gin had already seen him for what he was. Your father spent over a century at Aizen's side, waiting for an opportunity to kill him. Do you know why?"

Kin simply shook her head, face blank and her reiatsu locked down to nothingness.

"Gin spent over a hundred years following a man he detested, for the sole purpose of avenging a wrong done to a young woman he had made the acquaintance of in Rukongai. She was perhaps the only person whom he could ever truly call his friend, and he vowed to destroy Aizen, so that she would never need to cry again."

Only silence, still, but a brief flicker of emotion slipped through her shields - confusion, mingled with something like anticipation, both subduing the coldly disdainful anger of earlier.

"The woman was your mother."

Kin did not answer for a long moment, her gaze fixed unblinkingly on the dark tiles beneath her feet, her jaw working as she chewed uneasily on her tongue. He waited with grim patience while she turned the information over in her mind. Finally, she drew a deep breath and raised her head enough that they could lock gazes. He met her ice-blue eyes - that pale, intense blue that was a perfect match for her father's - without hesitation, and held her gaze until she lowered her head again.

"Rei-obaa-san taught us not to ask questions, Hitsugaya-taichou, but I need to know," she began slowly, her voice tinged with an edge of worry. "Why are you telling me this? Why now?"

It was the closest to a segue he was going to receive. "Because you refuse to learn anything about your father," he answered, spinning his chair back to face the monitors, "you have no knowledge of his Zanpakutou."

The video was nothing impressive or incriminating; a simple, short clip of Gin on the practice field, Shinsou's blade flashing out to slash through target after target, neat halves of the marked paper fluttering to the ground in the wake of the gleaming steel.

Since he'd first felt the blade's reiatsu rise within Kin's own, Hitsugaya had been trying to imagine her reaction to learning that she wielded her father's blade. He'd expected her to react with fury or horror, reject the blade whose spirit was tainted with the blood of allies as well as enemies.

The last thing he'd expected was for her to simply break down and cry.

* * *

" 'm guessin' she din' take it too well."

"No," Hitsugaya answered tiredly, taking a careful sip of tea. "She didn't reject the blade, but she's not happy about bearing it, either. I left her at the Fifth and came to speak to you."

Slumped on a floor pillow across from the young Captain, Gin sighed softly as he refilled his own teacup from the still-steaming pot on the tray. "S'ppose I should be glad she kept it," he mused, taking a mouthful of the tea and hissing when it burned his tongue.

"Hyorinmaru says that the blade-spirit both is and is not the Shinsou you bore. That the soul is the same, but the personality seems more... innocent, was the word he used."

"An' y' don' believe anythin' t' do wi' me could be innocent?" Gin shot back, a faint flash of bitter humor in the words.

Hitsugaya snorted in response. Gin had been cleaning the Shoten when Hitsugaya had come through the Senkaimon, and he was wearing his oldest clothes for the duty - a well-worn, hip-length lavender yukata with frayed edges and stains at the hem. The jeans under it were equally worn, with torn knees and tattered cuffs. He looked disreputable at best, particularly with the yukata hanging loosely enough to revel the scars patterning his thin chest.

"You built your reputation on being an emotionless, blood-thirsty killing machine," Hitsugaya pointed out, taking another sip of his tea. "Forgive me if I can't believe captivity has turned you tame."

Gin snickered faintly, a ghost of his old smile tilting up the edges of his thin mouth as he raised his cup again, toasting Hitsugaya with the chipped porcelain before taking a long swallow of the still-steaming tea.

" 'm glad she kept 'im, though," he commented idly, jolting Hitsugaya out of his musings on masochism. "Shinsou, I mean. Havin' an ol' friend there t' protect m' girl makes me feel -"

Hitsugaya glanced up from his tea, curious, when Gin froze mid-sentence. The ice-blue eyes were fixed on the doorway beyond Hitsugaya's shoulder, widening with disbelief and something like terrified, tortured hope.

Even before he turned, Hitsugaya knew who he would see.

Kin stood there, her Academy uniform still streaked with the sweat and dust of her spar, strands of white-blonde hair escaping from her braid to fall around a face gone taught with strain.

In that moment, she looked more like her father than ever.

Two sets of pale eyes, perfect mirrors for one another, caught and held. Gin, his expression almost fearful, slowly set his cup down and extended his hand entreatingly towards his daughter. Her arms folded across her chest, Kin stared at his hand for a long moment before taking a shaking step forward, fingers twisting convulsively in the fabric of her sleeves.

Then her eyes dropped, slipping from Gin's extended hand to the vicious scars crisscrossing his chest.

The quiet fear in her pale-blue gaze morphed into horror in an eyeblink.

"Kin, wait!" Hitsugaya snapped, shoving to his feet, but Kin was already backing away, a sound somewhere between a denial and a scream tearing its way from her throat.

"_Kin_!" Hitsugaya shouted again, but the girl spun and ran, heedless of anything in her path as she fled back to the Senkaimon.

A startled Shinji appeared in the doorway from the kitchen, drawn by Hitsugaya's shouts, and instinctively reached to catch Kin's shoulders as she ran by. The girl twisted away with a frantic cry, Shinsou's blade flashing silver in the hallway light, too fast for Hitsugaya to shout a warning. Shinji staggered backwards with a yelp, his face shocked as blood blossomed crimson across his sleeve, and Kin ran on to where the Senkaimon waited.

She plunged into the blinding light without hesitation, following one of the Hell Butterflies that had been hovering patiently at the entrance of the Gate. The other two continued hovering; one aimlessly, awaiting Hitsugaya's return trip to Seireitei, the other fluttering close over the shoulder of the one it had guided in.

His mouth twisting in a snarl, Hitsugaya stormed forward, not fighting the urge to let his reiatsu rise, battering against the other Captain's with bruising force.

"Soifon," he spat, feeling Hyorinmaru's anger rising to mirror his own, chilling the air until his breath showed before him. "What was the meaning of that?"

Soifon, her arms folded across her chest and her expression bored, looked utterly unaffected by both the sudden chill and the weight of Hitsugaya's anger. "I thought Ichimaru could use a polite reminder of how much he still has left to lose should Aizen regain power."

"If Aizen regains power?" Hitsugaya spat, incredulity fueling his anger. "If Aizen regains power, do you honestly think Ichimaru will have _anything_ left? The first thing Aizen will do after regaining power is destroy Matsumoto and Kin in front of him as punishment for his betrayal! He's known that from the beginning! All you have accomplished," he added, his voice dropping from a shout to a deadly whisper, "is to do precisely what Aizen would have done - tear the last hope of reconciliation with his daughter away from him."

Hitsugaya turned and swept away without another word, leaving a wide-eyed Soifon behind him.

* * *

"I'm sorry," he said softly, crouching down beside the older man.

Gin didn't even glance up, his hands continuing their steady motion as he wrapped the gauze around Shinji's arm. Shinsou had bitten deep into the Visored's shoulder and arm, and the bandage was tinting red even as Gin wrapped it.

" 's not your fault," Gin murmured in response, mechanically continuing to wrap, around and around Shinji's arm, until the Visored gently set his hand over Gin's own, halting the motion.

"You don't have to fix it, Ichimaru," Shinji told him gently. "This isn't your fault."

Wordlessly, Gin tugged his hands free of Shinji's grasp. Blood had painted crimson streaks across his pale skin, colored his fingers like the touch of sin. Spreading his tainted hands to them both, Gin closed his eyes and turned away.


	23. Chains of Destiny

Warnings: Filler chapter. Excessive jumping between characters. Extremely tired author. Minimal proofreading, please excuse errors and PM me if I've done something obscenely idiotic.

Translator's Notes: 'Tadaima/Okairinasai' - customary phrases meaning roughly 'I'm home!' and 'Welcome back!'

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 23: Chains of Destiny

* * *

"Rukia's pregnant again."

To his credit, Ichigo only paused for a split-second before scowling and shoving the next bite of food in his mouth, chewing a bit more viciously than necessary. "Great," he said sourly, once he'd swallowed the well-processed mouthful. "Are you going to try to steal this one away to rule the Soul Society as well?"

Sitting across the small table from him, Hikifune shook her head and allowed a faint sigh to escape her, ruffling the opaque veil over her face. "You don't believe in destiny, do you?"

"It's hard not to believe in something when it has its teeth this deep in your ass," Ichigo snapped back, jabbing his laden chopsticks in her direction before reversing them to stuff the bite of food into his mouth. Between chews, he grumbled out, "I just want to know how badly it's going to bite my kid."

Much to his surprise, Hikifune laughed in response, the faint creases at the corners of her eyes deepening with amusement. "Every soul on this plane is set here to fulfill a specific destiny, Ichigo. Some of those destinies are magnificent, and some are mundane. Your twins were born to answer the great need of the Three Worlds - to dance in the footsteps of the Spirit King himself. The spirit within your newest child, however, is here for a very different purpose."

"If you already _know_ -"

The faintest scuff of a footstep at the doorway cut off Ichigo's words. Turning in his seat, he twisted his head over his shoulder to met his father's startled gaze. Seeing Isshin there wasn't a shock - they were in the kitchen the Clinic house, waiting for the children to get back from shopping with Yuzu. The expression on his father's face, however; surprise giving way to a quickly-suppressed flash of white-hot anger at the sight of the Guard - that was surprising.

"Hikifune," Isshin said finally, his voice and expression carefully neutral. "This is an unexpected surprise."

Her own eyes dimmed from brightly amused to startlingly blank, Hikifune responded with a dignified nod. "It's good to see you again, Isshin. You're looking well."

"The same, I'm sure," Isshin retorted sourly, turning away from the door. "I'll be in the Clinic if you need me, Ichigo."

Ichigo grunted an acknowledgement and shoved another bite of food into his mouth. He'd missed breakfast that morning, chasing a weak but particularly nimble Hollow across what seemed like half of Karakura, then had to rush back home to retrieve his body and send the children off with Yuzu. He'd arrived at his first class of the day late, rumpled, and hungry, and the day hadn't improved much from there. He'd come to the Clinic to pick up his kids after he'd gotten out of school, and been waylaid at the door by Hikifune. So far, the only redeeming factor to the day was that Yuzu had stored plenty of leftovers in the fridge.

"He still hasn't forgiven me," Hikifune remarked musingly, staring at the empty doorway. "Not that he has any reason to, I suppose, when I haven't even forgiven myself."

Ichigo didn't react for a long moment, more focused on chewing his food. Once he'd swallowed, though, he very deliberately set his chopsticks aside and turned to face Hikifune squarely across the table. Laying his hands firmly on the polished wood, he looked her in the eye and said simply, "You were my mother's personal Guard."

Hikifune went motionless for the space of a heartbeat, her eyes wide behind her veil. "That is... a very intuitive assumption, Ichigo," she said softly, after a long moment had passed. "Did someone guide you to that realization?"

Wordlessly, Ichigo shook his head in response, and Hikifune sighed softly, slumping forward in her chair. "I was one of them, yes," she replied levelly. "But I was the only one who helped her escape the King's Realm."

* * *

"She didn't tell me where she was going, of course," Hikifune continued, ignoring Ichigo's gape-mouthed astonishment. "It would have been too dangerous for us both. But I was the one that helped her surrender her power, the one who guided her to the Gate, the one who hid the trail of her reiatsu so that no one, not even myself, could find her."

Straightening slightly in her chair, Hikifune folded her hands on the table before her, staring quietly down at her scarred knuckles. "It was only after you came to the King's attention that we learned of your mother's fate. She was a good woman, Ichigo, and a braver one than you could ever imagine."

"What do you -"

The sound of the front door slamming open interrupted him, followed almost instantly by the sound of his twin's laughter and Yuzu's call of "Nii-san! Oyaji! Tadaima!"

"Okairinasai!" Ichigo shouted back automatically, half-turning towards the door. The motion gave his back to the Guard sitting across from him, and he barely heard the faint scuff of her chair as she moved from it.

"Remember, Ichigo," Hikifune murmured, suddenly close enough that the fine silk of her veil grazed the edge of Ichigo's ear, "every spirit, on every plane, is precisely where destiny requires it to be."

He spun back to look for her, even as his children darted into the kitchen to launch tackle-like hugs at his knees, but she was already gone.

* * *

A strange quiet had permeated the Kurosaki Clinic, broken only by the muffled clatter of metal instruments being shifted and shuffled as Isshin sorted through his drawers, sterilizing already-pristine tools with less than half his mind on the task at hand.

No matter how much experience one has in handling sharp objects, it is still work that requires one's full attention, and, when neglected, has a tendency to make reminders of that both abrupt and painful.

Swearing under his breath, Isshin dropped the scalpel he'd been working on into the sink, stripped off his glove and grabbed a nearby towel to hold pressure on the crimson line writing itself down his forefinger. It served him right, really, for not paying attention, but it still _hurt_.

The physical pain was easy, though, sharp and clear and only too easily remedied. But no matter how easily he fixed that physical pain, it wouldn't remedy the dull ache in his chest that had reared up the moment he looked into Hikifune's eyes.

He still remembered her as she had been, over a century ago - remembered her well enough that he could still have described what her face looked like beneath that white veil; the tiny scar at the side of her cheek, the faint lines that smiling deeply and often had etched around her mouth, the fact that her nose, broken centuries before he was born, hadn't been quite straight in as long as he'd known her.

She'd been something of an informal mother to what seemed like half the Gotei, her sardonic, affectionate amusement somehow less intimidating than Unohana's chillingly polite smiles, and her Lieutenant had not been the only one heartbroken when the senior officers were informed that she was leaving for the King's Guard.

Kyouraku had cracked some joke about her protecting a princess, but at that point, none of them had even known the King had a daughter.

Isshin himself had learned that fact the night that Masaki had knocked on Urahara's door, but it wasn't until almost a decade afterward that he'd first heard Masaki speak Hikifune's name. Once she learned that Isshin had known the old woman, though, it had taken no prompting at all for Masaki to begin telling him of Kirio's time in the King's Realm. True to form, Hikifune had become like a mother to the restless princess, and very soon, was the only one of the Guard that Masaki placed her full trust in.

It was true that Isshin had never forgiven Hikifune, but only because he had never been angry with her in the first place. Masaki had trusted the old woman, loved her as everyone in the Gotei had loved her, and Isshin could never begrudge her that. It seemed that Kirio's understanding of him had faded over the decades spend away, though. She thought the anger she saw in his eyes was directed at her, for helping Masaki escape the Spirit Realm so effectively that neither the chains nor the shield could find her again.

The anger wasn't aimed at her, though. Isshin had always admired Kirio - even when she was serving the Gotei, she had been one that was never afraid to stand up against an injustice, to fight for what she believed was true and right. It was a sense of duty Isshin had struggled to instill in his children, that willingness to fight for change.

Pulling the towel away, he stared at the cut in his finger with weary apathy. Even now, Kirio was fighting for change, trying desperately to do what was best for everyone. It was that willingness, that strength, that had drawn Isshin to admire her so much when he was still a cocky young unseated officer, brawling his way towards the lower ranks of the Divisions.

It was that defiance, and that willingness to fight, that he had lost so long ago.

* * *

"I owe you an apology."

Ice-blue eyes, narrowed to the merest of slits, flickered sideways to the Shihoin princess kneeling at the doorway before returning to the floor, following the hypnotic motion of the broom.

"Soifon acted against my orders when she involved you and your daughter in this investigation," Yoruichi continued, her own gaze fixed quietly on her hands, folded neatly against her thighs.

The broom didn't pause, merely continued rhythmically moving dust.

"She acted out of pride and a desire for recognition. It is not the way of the Onmitsukidou."

A brief pause in the sound of the broom's motion raised Yoruichi's head, but Gin had only stopped to inspect a spider, hanging in his web at the corner of the ceiling. The tiny brown arachnid, as if sensing his scrutiny, began to scuttle towards the safety of the cracked wooden beams, where it could secrete itself in one of the narrow gaps. It didn't move quite quickly enough, though; one pale, long-fingered hand shot forward, deftly plucking the spider from its web.

" 's amazin'," Gin mused, staring down as the spider scrambled frantically to escape his palm, "how tiny some lives are, hmm? When someone don't have the power t' stand up t' ya, 's easy t' just... squash 'em."

Raising his other hand, Gin began to swing his palms together, preparing to end the life of the tiny creature in his grasp...

He stopped, his hands still inches apart, the spider clinging frantically to one of his thin fingers.

"So easy t' kill," Gin sighed, lowering his hands slightly and moving to the back of the room, where a single window was set into the wall. With some difficulty, he forced the window open one-handed, and, very gently, shook the unharmed spider from his hand and onto the bush beneath the window. "So easy t' let alone."

Slamming the window shut, he retrieved his broom and quietly knocked the uninhabited web from the corner. "If y' can't keep yer pet under control," he snapped, turning to meet Yoruichi's gaze for the first time, "mebbe y' should consider a leash?"

Yoruichi held his stare for a long moment, lambent-gold eyes steady against icy blue, before she finally dropped her head with a weary sigh. "I'm sorry, Gin," she said softly, but he had already turned away, the broom resuming its steady motion.

When the silence in the room grew too thick to breathe in, Yoruichi quietly rose to her feet and slipped out, pushing the door carefully closed behind her.

Gin continued sweeping for a long moment after Yoruichi's soft footsteps had faded to silence in the hallway beyond the door. Once he was certain she was out of earshot, however, the motion of the broom began to grow slower and slower before finally stuttering to a stop.

Sinking to the floor, Gin hugged his knees to his chest and let the silent tremors he'd been fighting overwhelm his body.

* * *

_Clack_.

"...locked herself in her room for a day and a half mediating, then came back out and returned to classes like nothing had happened. She's not speaking to anyone other than the professors and those two brats that Renji and Kuchiki-taichou sponsored -"

"I didn't think she spoke to anyone else in any case."

Hisagi snorted softly, snapping his stone down on the board between them. "She doesn't. I've tried to talk to her once or twice, understand her as a Shinigami, but I've had longer conversations with Kuchiki over the amount of dust in the training fields."

_Clack._

"Perhaps she's more like her mother than we give her credit for," Kira answered thoughtfully, staring at the piece he'd set down without really seeing it. "Matsumoto has taken the time to cultivate an outward nature in order to disguise her true disposition. Kin hasn't had the luxury of doing so."

_Clack_. "And you think Ran's a standoffish, stubborn, taciturn wretch?"

"I don't think she's taciturn," Kira mumbled vaguely, shifting his own hand just in time to prevent setting his own stone on a space Shuuhei's already occupied. "But Matsumoto-san is a very private individual. She only pretends otherwise."

Shuuhei raised an eyebrow across the board at him, which Kira ignored, then snapped his stone down, muttering something under his breath too low for Kira to catch.

They played for a few moments more, the room silent but for the sharp _clacks_ of their stones, before Kira asked, "How is Matsumoto-san taking her daughter gaining Gin's Zanpakutou?"

Shuuhei froze at the question, his hand hovering in midair above the board, stone held delicately between his first two fingers. For the space of three breaths, he held that position, keeping his eyes on the board and refusing to meet Kira's gaze.

"Shuuhei?"

"She's taking it about as well as you," Hisagi answered finally, and snapped his stone down.

Bewildered, Kira followed his partner's gaze to the close-grained wood, blinked, and stared. The white stones - his white stones - had been ringed in, an unbroken perimeter of black surrounding them, capturing both the stones and the territory they covered.

For the first time since he and Shuuhei had begun playing one another, Kira had lost.

* * *

"Hisagi-taichou!"

Both men turned to the doorway, blinking in surprise at the sight of a distinctly ruffled Yumichika leaning through the opening. One of the Lieutenant's eyes was bruised and swollen half-shut, a thin gash high on his left cheekbone was seeping a slow trickle of blood down the length of his face, and his usually-pristine shihakusho was torn in a dozen places, streaked with dirt and and something in a retina-searing shade of... pink?

"There's been a bit of an incident at the barracks," Yumichika explained, the distinct tone of exasperation in his voice cluing them in to the identity of the 'incident,' even if the bilious smears on his clothes hadn't.

"Kusajishi visiting again?" Shuuhei asked on a sigh, giving Kira's hand a gentle squeeze and levering himself out of his seat.

"Yes!" came the aggravated huff in reply. "And as if that's not enough, she's brought that redheaded horror of Urahara's with her!"

Hisagi's 'ah' of response wasn't quite a groan, but the implication was certainly there. Hesitant, he bent to meet Kira's eyes across the table. "I should -"

"I know," Kira answered softly, dropping his gaze back to the board in front of him, the black-and-white stones still spelling out his defeat with perfect clarity. "I'll be fine. Go."

Shuuhei squeezed his hand again, both a question and a reassurance. "I'll be back as soon as I can," he whispered, his eyes anguished at Kira's silence, and whisked himself away.

Kira was still gazing at the board when his aide brought lunch an hour later.

* * *

"Headin' back to the Academy, Fumio?"

Spinning around with a startled yelp, the young man clutched the book he was carrying tighter against his chest and peered wide-eyed down the hallway he'd just passed. How he'd managed to miss Abarai Renji standing barely an arm's length from the hallway's end was beyond him - even without the ability to sense reiatsu, the Consort's vibrant disposition and appearance made him difficult to overlook.

"How - how did you know I was going to the Academy, Renji-san?" Fumio stammered out in surprise, and winced once the question had left his lips. He was only a junior archivist, and for all his noble blood, Renji was ranked high above him. It didn't do for someone, particularly of Fumio's young age, to question his superiors.

However, Renji being Renji, he had never particularly cared for nobility's rules. "Kid, you spend more time in the Archives than some of the books do," he chuckled, stepping out onto the veranda to give Fumio's shoulder a gentle pat. "You think nobody's gonna notice you leaving the grounds?"

It was a valid point, Fumio realized, wilting slightly. Although he hadn't realized he was important enough for anybody to actually _care_ where he went on the rare occasion he did venture out of the walls, it had probably been foolish to assume that his passage would go unnoticed.

"Ko-san likes to read," he offered, almost guiltily, loosening his cross-armed grasp on the heavy tome he was still clutching to his chest. "Our archive has a more extensive selection than the Academy Library, and I don't mind taking the books over to her."

"Relax, kid, you're not in trouble. 's nice to see you takin' an interest in the outside world for a change," Renji grinned, hooking one forefinger around the top edge of the book and pulling gently down until he could read the title. " 'A History of Shinigami and Zanpakutou'?"

"Yes, sir," Fumio replied, nodding sharply enough that his glasses began to slide precariously down his nose. Scrambling to catch them with one hand, he nearly lost his grip on the heavy book in the process and gave a sigh of relief when Renji caught it in one strong hand, passing it back once Fumio had organized himself. "Thank you. Ko-san said... well, she said that her roommate had somehow inherited her father's Zanpakutou spirit. I'm know I'm not a lore-scholar, much less one of Shinigami lore, but I didn't realize such a thing was possible. So when Ko-san suggested studying the history of Zanpakutou to see if it had ever happened before..."

"Y' went an' found the most comprehensive book on it in th' Archives," Renji finished, eyeing the massive book with an amused grin.

"Yes, sir," he answered sheepishly. "But I don't... is it true? That Kin-san inherited her father's blade?"

"Well..." frowning faintly, Renji considered his response for a minute before shaking his head and motioning to the side of the veranda. "Sit down, kid, this is gonna take a minute."

Obediently, Fumio settled himself on the edge of the porch, his back braced against one of the ornate pillars, while Renji flopped somewhat carelessly down in front of him, letting one leg hang over the side, his foot swinging restlessly.

"Without you bein' a Shinigami, it's almost impossible t' explain the bond between one of us and our Zanpakutou," Renji sighed, mentally prodding Zabimaru as he spoke. The nue only grumbled in response, and Renji bit back his sigh of mild exasperation. "They're part of our souls, born from our spirits and abilities, but they're separate beings. If a Shinigami dies, their Zanpakutou will usually die with 'em. There've been exceptions, but it's not common."

"Exceptions, sir?" Fumio echoed, balancing the heavy book carefully on his thighs as he leaned forward, curious.

"There's only two that I can think of; Tousen's one of 'em. He took the blade of his best friend after she was killed, an' used it as his own Zanpakutou. Dunno if the spirit changed any, though, it was b'fore my time."

"And the other?"

Renji snorted out a short laugh, straightening up and pulling both his legs beneath him. "You wanna know about the other one, you ask Hitsugaya-taichou yourself. Point is, we don't know exactly how the Zanpakutou work. Th' blade Kin's got has the same name an' powers as her dad's, an' the other Zanpakutou that've spoken to it say the personality's similar, but not the same. They believe it's the same spirit, but it's changed t' reflect its new bearer."

"I see, or at least I think I see," Fumio smiled. "But if I may... how is it that some of the Zanpakutou are able to serve two masters simultaneously, and one Zanpakutou is not thought to be able to serve two masters consecutively?"

"You're not supposed t' know about the dual-bonding, Fumio," Renji said with feigned severity, letting a faint smile slip across his face to take the sting from his words. "An' it only works because Byakuya an' I are what the humans call 'soulmates.' We're joined on a level that's beyond lifetimes. It's pretty rare, but it's not unheard of. But Kin an' Ichimaru? They're not gonna have that kinda bond, and even Kyouraku and Ukitake can't remember a Zanpakutou passin' directly from parent to child. Closest that's ever come is Ichigo an' his dad - their Zanpakutou have the same powers an' similar names, but they're not th' same blade."

Shifting the book higher on his thighs, Fumio frowned thoughtfully at the polished floorboards between himself and Renji, his mind tumbling these new facts over one another, waiting for something to rise to the surface. When the thought did, it spilled from his mouth almost without the acknowledgement of his mind.

"Has there ever been a case of a Shinigami coming into power after their parent was neutralized?"

Renji opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, frowning thoughtfully. "Y'know, kid, you might just be on t' something there," he muttered, pushing himself to his feet. "I've got some records to go check out. No, you go on t' the Academy," he added preemptively, as Fumio opened his mouth to offer his help. "Tell Ko I said hey."

"I... yes, of course, Renji-san," Fumio answered, clambering to his feet with the book clutched to his chest. "Thank you for talking to me."

"Don' mention it," Renji called back, already on his way back down the hallway he'd first appeared from. "An' don't have too much fun!"

Blushing crimson, Fumio squashed down the smile threatening to overtake his face and set off for the Academy once again.

* * *

A cup of tea was settled quietly on the desk, close enough to the empty sake bottle that the wafting steam curled around the bottle's flared mouth. Without comment, the pale hand removed the bottle and the empty sake dish that rested beside it, prompting a faint groan from the figure slumped over the surface of the desk.

"Taichouu... I was drinkin' thaat..." Matsumoto moaned, lifting her head from her folded arms, wincing at the light in the office. It wouldn't have surprised him if her head had already begun to ache - she'd been drinking steadily since she returned from the Academy and her talk with Kin. From what he understood, the girl had politely but firmly told her mother that Rangiku was too emotionally compromised to offer suggestions on Kin's future course with both Shinsou and the Gotei. The fact that it was the complete truth, and both of them knew it, had not improved the mood of either Matsumoto in the slightest.

"I'm perfectly aware you were drinking it," Hitsugaya answered gently, setting both cup and bottle aside to be washed before returning to his Lieutenant's side. "That's why I gave you the tea."

Matsumoto shot him a look that probably would have given Kenpachi pause, but picked up the cup and sipped carefully at the steaming contents, only to set it back down with a wince. "Too hot," she said simply, leveling an accusatory glare at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and a few strands of tangled hair fell across her face, only to be ignored.

Without comment, Toushirou extended his hand and touched his forefinger to the rim of the cup, allowing the merest spark of his power to jump to the ceramic surface. The amount of steam drifting up from the cup decreased instantly. Rangiku's expression was still bitter, but she picked up the cup again and drank without complaint.

"I understand they're placing her in an accelerated course," he said softly, pushing a stack of paperwork aside so that he could prop one hip on the corner of her desk. There was no need to specify who he was referring to - only those she loved could drive Matsumoto to this state.

"Her advisor said she should graduate within a year," Rangiku confirmed miserably, staring down at her empty teacup for a long moment before bending down to yank open the bottom drawer of her desk. Annoyed but not surprised, Hitsugaya watched as she extracted another bottle of sake from behind the file folders there.

"And?" he prompted, waiting patiently as she carefully refilled her teacup with the potent rice wine. Once the cup was full, though, he deftly plucked the bottle from her hand, pulling it out of reach.

"Hey!"

"That's enough, Matsumoto," he said simply, leaning the bottom of the bottle on his knee as he held it. "Kin's accelerated courses?"

Matsumoto glowered at him, but sipped slowly from the cup. "You're her sponsor, taichou. I thought you knew about this?"

As a matter of fact, he did. The Academy had sent him a messenger that morning with the details of Kin's newly accelerated schedule - intensified lessons in kidou, the beginning of the officer-training courses most students didn't receive until their sixth year, inclusion in every mock-Hollow combat session being held, and the one-on-one tutoring in Zanpakutou combat from one of the Academy's top instructors. Yusa-sensei was often assigned to deal with teaching child prodigies the art of wielding their blades; in fact, he had been the one who'd taught Hitsugaya.

He'd also been the one to teach Gin.

"I did know," Hitsugaya allowed, moving the bottle a little farther away from his Lieutenant when she eyed it as though judging its distance from her grasp. Matsumoto huffed at him, and leaned down to open her drawer again, no doubt seeking another illicitly-stored bottle..

Wordlessly, Hitsugaya threw a wave of power at the side of the desk that froze the drawer shut. Matsumoto straightened up with a near-audible snap of her spine and glared at him in furious indignation, tiny particles of ice clinging to the tips of her fingers.

He ignored her expression. "She's going to need to make a decision about which Division to enter before she graduates, Matsumoto."

In the space of a heartbeat, all of the anger and indignation leached from his Lieutenant's face, leaving her slumped in her seat again, tangled hair falling forward to obscure her face. "I know."

"I realize you've been considering it," he said softly, and received a weary nod in response. "What have you come up with?"

"Most of the Divisions can't take her, or won't," Matsumoto answered, staring at her mostly-empty cup for a minute. Taking the hint, Hitsugaya quietly got up to retrieve the pot of tea steeping quietly on the corner table.

"The First Division is out of the question, she doesn't have the skill, and I don't dare even suggest her joining the Third or the Ninth," Rangiku sighed, accepting a second cup of tea with more grace than she had the first. "She's not a healer, a brawler, or a scientist, so the Fourth, Eleventh and Twelfth are out. She can't come here because the accusations of nepotism would run rampant. The Sixth would probably suit her, but it wouldn't be fair to Byakuya to have her there. Soifon wouldn't accept her if she were the last officer in the Seireitei. Renji would take her, I'm sure, but having her in the Fifth..."

Hitsugaya merely nodded, faintly surprised by the amount of thought Rangiku had put into this. When something mattered to her, his Lieutenant was never less than completely thorough, but that she could reel off the reasons against her daughter joining over half the Divisions in the Gotei without batting an eye was... disconcerting, at best.

"Kyouraku would certainly take her -"

Hitsugaya snorted. "But would you be willing to trust your daughter to the Division of a lecherous drunkard?"

Matsumoto glared at him, but when Hitsugaya made no move to retract his insult to her drinking partner, she continued. "Ukitake might actually be best, there's almost no doubt that's where Ko will end up, as much of a Kuchiki as she's turning into, so at least there would be a friendly face..."

"I'm joining the Seventh."

Matsumoto straightened with a yelp, and Hitsugaya spun, startled, to face the doorway of his office. The door was only open halfway, and Kin's pale face was starkly framed within the narrow gap.

As Matsumoto gasped her way through trying to ask her daughter how long she'd been eavesdropping, Hitsugaya frowned, stretching a seeking tendril of reiatsu towards the girl. Even at this distance, even seeking it out, he could only sense the barest edge of her energy. The amount of reiatsu she had was moderate at best, but the amount of _control_ she had over that reiatsu - that was nothing short of astonishing.

After a moment, though, her words finally processed for both of them, and Matsumoto shoved her hair back from her face, staring at her daughter in disbelief. "What do you mean, you're joining the Seventh?"

"I've already approached Komamura-taichou," came the quiet reply, as Kin shifted her weight nervously from foot to foot, never making a move to step through the door. "He and Iba-fukutaichou have no objections to me joining the Division, and I feel it would be the best place for me."

"But... why?" Rangiku asked blankly, her expression uncomprehending. "You could join Renji or Ukitake, they would both take you on without question, and those are two of the top Divisions -"

"That _is_ why, Mother," Kin answered, her quiet voice emphatic enough to give Matsumoto pause. "I am not suited to the top Divisions of the Gotei. I am the child of a traitor, and I cannot ask the best of the Divisions to accept me. Komamura-taichou takes pleasure in collecting misfits and strays; I will not sully the reputation of his Squad."

Pausing, Kin gave them both a hesitant half-smile, one that mirrored the broken smile Rangiku had given Hitsugaya hours earlier with eerie perfection. "Besides," she added, barely above a whisper, "when the Captain of a Division is a wolf, who will care that I am half snake?"

She vanished from the door without another word, leaving the pair of them staring mutely at the blank space. When he finally blinked himself from his reverie, Hitsugaya shook his head, lifted the bottle of sake he was still holding to his lips, and drained the bottle in three fast swallows.

"Soifon," he said feelingly, when he'd lowered the bottle again, "is an idiot."

* * *

O

* * *

Next chapter will be set after a time jump of fifteen years, because Ichigo's kids, being dating age? Yeah, it's gonna be fun.


	24. Family and Friends

A/N: Work. That is all I am going to say, is work. New month, new chapter. In more ways than one.

This chapter comes after a long time-skip, one which puts the ages of the characters as follows:

Kaien/Masaki - 3 months from turning 21 and going to Spirit Realm (20 yrs 9 mo)

Ichiro (born the night of Chad's death) 17 yrs 7 mo

Sado (born 9 mo after Chad's funeral) 16 yrs 10 mo

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 24: Family and Friends

* * *

"Ichiro."

With a now-unconscious effort, the boy kept himself from reacting. It was easy enough, particularly with the wire of his earphones plainly visible, to pretend that he couldn't hear the man calling him.

"Ichiro!"

The fact that the earphones were sitting silent - he rarely listened to music anymore - was his secret and his alone.

"Arisawa Ichiro, stop this instant!"

Unfortunately, Ishida Uryuu knew him far too well to fall for such a simple trick. It was a simple side-effect of having known him since before he were born.

Jolting to a stop as though only the last shout had penetrated his thoughts, Ichiro made a show of 'pausing' his music and carefully unthreading one of the earphones. "Uncle Uryuu," he said, expertly twisting his voice into the blend of faint confusion, mild surprise, and polite welcome. "Sorry, I didn't hear you."

Cool eyes narrowed behind frameless glasses as one long-fingered hand raised to brush a lock of pewter-streaked black hair behind his ear again. "Of course you didn't," Uryuu sighed with sardonic resignation, and Ichiro grimaced slightly. Trying to put one over on his 'uncle' was always a vain hope, particularly given that Uryuu and Orihime had had a fair hand in raising him.

The close-knit group of friends had become even closer with the loss of one of their own, banding around Tatsuki and her newborn son in the years following Chad's death. As stubborn as ever, Tatsuki had returned to running her dojo only weeks after loosing her husband, leaving a still-broken Nova to care for their house. A black bass guitar hanging on the wall and a cradle in the corner of her office marked the silent concessions to the changes in her life, and Ichiro had spent the first years of his life drifting to sleep to the rhythm of katas in the outer rooms.

Around the time he'd turned two, he'd become too restless for Tatsuki to manage along with the dojo, and Orihime, between positions in her part-time job as a kindergarten teacher, had volunteered to look after him. She, like Yuzu, had become one of the default babysitters in the group, and embraced the opportunity to spend time with any of the children, in part because she would never have one of her own.

No one - not even Urahara and Unohana, with all their expertise - could explain Orihime's infertility. It could have been a cost of her powers, her time in Hueco Mundo, or a simple quirk of genetics. She'd kept a brave face when she'd been told - _"I guess Uryuu and I are just meant to restore life, not create it"_ - but Uryuu alone knew that she'd cried herself silently to sleep every night for weeks afterwords, her body shaking in his arms.

Even under the pain of death, he would never, never tell her that it was better this way, better that the Quincy line ended with him. The tenuous peace that existed between the Soul Society and the two remaining Quincy would not likely survive if their race began to repopulate.

So Orihime cared for the children of their friends and taught the children of strangers, smiling quietly as she always did, and every night Uryuu held her, simultaneously blessing and cursing deities he didn't believe in for the fate that would leave them childless.

"Did you need something, Uncle Uryuu?" Ichiro's voice - carefully polite and only politely interested, as though he was speaking to a stranger on the street rather than the man who was as good as family - called the Quincy from his thoughts.

"As a matter of fact, I do. We have a few things we need to discuss," Uryuu responded, his tone carefully neutral, and fought against his instinctive scowl when the boy's natural reiatsu flattened sullenly in response. The fact that Uryuu could sense it so easily - from halfway across the city, earlier that morning - was one of the things he had to discuss.

It was, sadly, the lesser of his concerns.

"I was on my way to meet Sado -" the boy began, his confusion slipping from feigned to honest as he gestured awkwardly in the direction he'd been walking.

"That is, in part, what we need to discuss," Uryuu replied, mentally cursing Tatsuki for leaving this situation in his hands. It was only a minor mercy that Ichigo had agreed to speak to Sado about it.

It should not, perhaps, have come as such a surprise. The four children - Ichigo's destiny-ridden twins, Tatsuki and Chad's tragedy-born son, and Ichigo and Rukia's youngest, conceived the night of their friend's funeral - had all been raised together, and the two younger had been best friends and co-conspirators from the time they'd learned to walk. The three-year age gap between the boys and the twins meant that the quartet generally paired off, Kaien and Masaki's cheerful sniping an odd counterpoint to Sado and Ichiro's quiet trust.

When Sado had, at the age of fourteen, quietly confessed that he liked boys - 'I'm kinda like Uncles Renji and Byakuya,' - it had only brought the two closer together, later spurring Ichiro to confess his own bisexuality.

Really, if Uryuu had bothered to consider the matter at all, he would have seen this coming; a road to a place that shouldn't be traveled, a road that he alone out of their group could apparently see. Trying to explain the matter to Ichigo without revealing exactly _why _the two boys needed intervention in their relationship had been trying, even for Uryuu's adept tongue.

"And please strengthen your shields," Uryuu added, as a too-hot thread of sullen irritability flickered against his own barriers. "You're leaking reiatsu and I would rather not attract unwanted attention."

"Unwanted attention from _what_, Uncle?" Ichiro snapped, yanking his headphones off entirely, shaking his thick black curls back from his face as he did so. "A handful of starving poltergeists? Or the imaginary boogeyman you've been telling us to fear all our lives?"

Uryuu bit down on his tongue hard enough to taste blood, stopping the instinctive reaction to Ichiro's outburst - _'That 'imaginary boogeyman' was responsible for your father's death,' _ and only met and held the boy's gaze, knowing his eyes were icy.

Ichiro's disbelief was not unfounded. The day of Chad's death, the very same day they had realized that Aizen had returned to the World of the Living in the body of a human child, was the last day they had seen any evidence of the would-be-god's existence.

No one - not the deadly operatives of the Onmitsukidou, not the scientists of the Twelfth Division, not the Vizoreds, not the Quincy, not even Yamamoto himself - could find any trace of Aizen's reiatsu, after the one, lethal spike of it that had signaled Chad's death. A hundred searches of Karakura, branching out over the entire prefecture, the entire country, and eventually over half the world, had all come up empty.

It was as though Aizen had reincarnated only to vanish from the face of the Earth, and taken virtually the entire population of Hollow with him. In the years since Chad's death, Hollow sightings had dropped from a dozen a week to less than a handful a month.

Those who had survived the Winter War fought off the tempting barbs of complacency with a touch to the scars that had been left on their bodies and minds, and a glance to the empty space at the table when they gathered. The constant visits from members of the King's Guard kept Ichigo's children from falling beneath the spell of false comfort, but Ichiro did not have the benefit of those lessons.

Finally dropping his gaze, the boy silently began bolstering his shields, wrapping the Hollow-tinged power he'd inherited from his father firmly in layers of his natural strength.

Uryuu nodded quietly and set a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. "Thank you," he said simply, and carefully turned the young man back to his car, so that they could speak in private.

What he had to say to Ichiro was not anything that either of them would appreciate having overheard.

* * *

Mouthing a litany of soundless curses, Ichigo stripped the bloodstained gloves from his hands, balling them together in an expert motion and hurling them into the biohazard bin in the corner. His shirt, the front of it marred with darkening streaks of crimson, followed a split-second later, leaving Ichigo bare-armed in his white undershirt. Across the room, his father watched silently, his arms folded across his chest tightly enough to crease the fabric of his white lab coat.

"Your children's tutor was here again today," Isshin said, his voice blank, as Ichigo turned to the sink to scrub the feeling of nitrile off his hands. The accident had occurred almost directly in front of the Clinic, and Ichigo had fought to keep the young boy from bleeding out before the ambulance arrived while Isshin and Yuzu had kept the child's frantic parents at bay.

"I'm not surprised," Ichigo answered coolly, flicking soap suds from his hands to spatter the interior of the steel sink. "They leave for the Spirit Realm in less than three months, Dad. They have to be ready."

Isshin made a noncommittal noise in response, waiting quietly as Ichigo turned the water to near-scalding before simply letting it run over his fingers, skin reddening in the wake of the heat as he tried to burn the sense-memory of blood off his hands.

"Hikifune's been coming virtually every week for the past decade," Ichigo added, pulling his hands from under the flow of water and shutting the tap off with his elbow. "Why are you commenting on it now?"

"Because it hasn't mattered until now," Isshin answered flatly, tossing a towel to his son. Ichigo caught it single-handedly, inhaling the familiar scent of chlorine that lingered in the fibers as he scrubbed his hands dry.

"And what, exactly, made you decide it suddenly matters?" Ichigo snapped, hurling the towel back. "Is it the same problem that made you stand and stare while a child was bleeding out on our sidewalk, instead of making yourself fucking useful? You could have helped apply pressure, you could have called the fucking hospital, but no, Yuzu and I have to do everything that should come to you by instinct now!"

"You know I'm not going to be the one to call the hospital," Isshin gritted back, his hands clenching the towel so tightly that his knuckles turned nearly as white as the fabric.

"No, of course not," Ichigo spat, his eyes narrowing as he stalked across the room. "How could I forget that you and Ryuuken are still behaving like three year olds, each of you pretending the other one doesn't exist?"

"We are not -" Isshin began furiously, but Ichigo cut him off, seizing the lapels of Isshin's starched white coat with his raw hands, jerking his father forward until they were nearly nose-to-nose.

"No, Dad, you don't get to play the fucking plausible deniability card anymore. Ever since the twins were born, there's been something wrong between you and Ryuuken. You never go out with him any more, you drink yourself into a stupor every time his name is mentioned -what the hell _happened_ between you two?" In one abrupt, nearly convulsive gesture, Ichigo released his grasp on his father's coat and shoved him backwards, hard enough that Isshin staggered the two steps backwards to the wall.

"You used to be the only person Ryuuken trusted, and probably one of the only people in the world he cared about," Ichigo said, his voice softening as he stepped back, widening the neutral space between them. "So you tell me, Dad - what the fuck happened?"

For a long moment, Isshin simply stared, his expression blank and frozen, before exhaling wearily, sinking in on himself as he dropped his gaze. "I offered Ryuuken everything he ever wanted," he answered softly. "And he told me he never wanted to see me again."

* * *

Humming absently under his breath, Ukitake carefully twirled his brush through the dish of thick ink on his desk, enjoying the familiar, bitter scent of ink and paper. Through the open window of his office, he could hear Rukia outside, pacing restlessly up and down the veranda, knowing that her cellphone was all but glued to her ear as she argued with her husband.

" - how am I supposed to know? I wasn't even in the Gotei when he was still serving, and Ishida's father avoids me like the plague!"

Ichigo's response was somewhat less than flattering, if the ice-sharp spike of Rukia's reiatsu was anything to judge by. Her growled "Try that again, Ichigo?" was enough to send her Captain into a fit of carefully-muffled chuckles as it was.

"It's amazing she and Kurosaki-san haven't killed each other yet."

His smile broadening, Ukitake turned away from the window and back to the doorway of his office, where the newest of his twentieth-seat officers waited, a sheaf of papers tucked under her arm. "Ah, Ko-san!" he exclaimed cheerfully, waving the girl in. "Good afternoon. Are those Retsu's reports? Yes, just leave them there, I'll attend to them in a moment -"

"_I'm_ stubborn?" Rukia squawked abruptly from outside, loud enough that both Ko and Ukitake winced. "This coming from a man that even _Zaraki_ has called bullheaded?"

"That's probably the most polite thing Zaraki has called him in recent years," Ukitake muttered,_ sotto voce_, and Ko bit down on a snicker in response. She'd had the dubious pleasure of witnessing one of Ichigo's encounters with Zaraki a year or so prior, when the Captain of the Eleventh had bullied his way past the Kuchiki House guards to demand a fight with Ichigo during one of the Substitute Shinigami's visits to the mansion. Ko, who'd been on the estate for one of her regular trips to the Archives, had been left with a firmly-ingrained appreciation for Ichigo's power when the reigning swordsman of the Seireitei had been knocked rather spectacularly on his ass.

Byakuya, who had spent the next three days supervising the repair of his training field, had been significantly less impressed, but then again, it was a demonstration he'd seen many times before.

"_I am not a kettle!"_

There was a momentary pause as both Ukitake and Ko turned bewildered glances towards the window, staring at the top of Rukia's bristling head, before Ukitake shrugged, shook his head slightly, and visibly dismissed the matter altogether.

"Not the most peaceable match I have ever witnessed," Ukitake allowed, rubbing his ear, "but perhaps one of the best-suited despite that. Or because of it. Stubbornness, I find, often necessitates a mirror. And speaking of stubborn," he added, ducking behind his desk to dig into one of his drawers, "how is your brother?"

"As well as can be expected - ah, thank you, Taichou! - considering that he's spending essentially every day cheerfully being kicked across the Eleventh's compound by Madarame-sanseki," Ko chuckled, accepting the chocolate bar Ukitake had handed her with a delighted grin.

"He's still determined to fight his way up to Ayasegawa-san's old position, isn't he?"

"Yes, sir. It's really Zaraki's fault for not having filled the fourth seat position yet, although, Haru being Haru, he's enough of an idiot that he'd probably try for it anyway."

"I have no doubts. He does bear a distinct resemblance to a certain impetuous young redhead I happen to remember from a few decades ago," Ukitake chuckled, leaning over again to pull a thick, leatherbound photo album from the bottom shelf of the bookcase next to his desk. "Now, where is - ah! There we are. Look familiar?"

Smiling, he flipped the book around for Ko to see, and she stared at the picture for a moment in sheer disbelief, before bursting out laughing. "That's - is that really Renji-san?"

"Oh, it is indeed. He was only a few years out of the Academy here," Ukitake answered fondly, settling the album on the desk between them. On the page, the photo showed a much younger Renji than Ko had ever known - his hair still bound in a ponytail, eyes bright and wild, with Ikkaku's elbow resting on his shoulder. Both of them sported a fair number of bruises and matching feral grins, their respective Zanpakutou, both in Shikai, slung over their free arms.

"I knew Madarame-san had trained Renji when he transfered to the Eleventh, but I'd never seen it," Ko admitted, still grinning at the picture. "I believe the only reason Madarame-san hasn't killed Haru already is out of respect for Renji, quite honestly."

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," Ukitake answered, drawing the album back to study the image for a long moment before gently closing the book again and setting it aside. "Anyone who can rise to the fifteenth seat of the Eleventh Division in such a short time has more to his credit than his sponsor's glory, and Madarame is not a sentimental man."

"The eye-paint isn't sentiment?" Ko countered curiously, tilting her head to one side as she nibbled on the chocolate.

"The eye-paint is Ayasegawa's sentiment," Ukitake corrected with amusement, turning to watch as Rukia's head bobbed by the window again, phone still firmly in her ear. "Madarame is also a man wise enough to indulge his lover on certain points."

"Yes, I'll be back tonight," Rukia's voice, softer now and laced with affection rather than annoyance, drifted through the open window. "I'll see you in a while, Ichigo."

There were no 'I-love-yous' exchanged between the pair, just Rukia's soft chuckle and the snap of her phone closing, but nobody ever question the bond between the pair. Their marriage, unconventional though it was, already bore the weight of years and destiny without flinching. The bond between them - nothing like the impossibly deep bond shared by Renji and Byakuya, or the centuries-long romance between Ukitake and Kyouraku - nonetheless had its own strength, something quietly different from the other relationships.

It was that quiet difference that had kept Ichigo and Rukia slipping between worlds for the past two decades, Rukia stepping into a gigai crafted to age as Isshin's did, Ichigo shedding his mortal form to return to the streets of Seireitei, each one taking turns at abandoning their world to be with one another.

"Love really is a marvelous thing," Ukitake mused, and very politely pretended not to notice as Ko blushed behind her chocolate, one of her hands seeking out the handkerchief she kept tucked into her kosode; white silk embroidered with the name of the young archivist in the Kuchiki House.

* * *

The crash of steel against steel tore through the tenuous early-morning peace that blanketed the Kuchiki compound, sparks flaring when the two blades met.

Renji, his smile feral, leaned a little more of his weight on the locked blades, trying to force Byakuya back a step. With his usual stubborn pride, the noble scion merely shifted to brace himself better, refusing to yield. He had gained strength in the past years, training constantly against Renji, and it showed. Even a decade ago, he would never have been able to hold the bigger man off with sheer physical strength.

Smirking, Renji leaned over the crossed blades, close enough to his partner that their faces were barely a breath apart - then stuck out his tongue and licked the tip of Byakuya's nose.

The blades separated with a hiss of steel on steel, and Renji was very quick to jump backwards, out of range of the more-than-slightly underhanded kick Byakuya aimed at his left knee. "Playin' dirty, Byakuya?" he snickered, shifting to rebalance himself and raising the blade he carried carefully in one hand.

"I," Byakuya responded with immense dignity, stepping back as well, blade held steadily before him and both hands firm on the hilt, "am merely suiting my fighting style to my opponent."

"Ouch," Renji countered, his smirk widening. "Just for that, we're takin' this up a level." So saying, he raised his hand, brandishing the katana towards Byakuya at shoulder-height. He only smiled in command, and the Zanpakutou dissolved into a thousand blades of light.

Senbonzakura worked well with Renji - he had from the beginning, and their partnership had only grown closer over the years, to the point that Byakuya wondered if the samurai did not like Renji better than Byakuya himself.

Not that it mattered - although Byakuya hadn't, quite, mastered Zabimaru's Bankai yet, he, like Renji, no longer needed speech to command the release of the blade. The barest sweep of his fingertips down the gleaming length of steel had Zabimaru's shikai form blooming in his hands, the segmented blade whipping out with a flick of his wrist to disperse the wave of gleaming petals that swept towards him.

* * *

Another reiatsu, decades familiar, flickered into the edges of Renji's consciousness, and he drew himself out of the distorted tunnel-vision that he allowed himself when sparring to throw a glance to the edge of the training field where his Lieutenant stood, her hair and shihakusho still settling from the speed of her shunpo.

He didn't need to think to withdraw Senbonzakura - the spirit had already sensed his shift in attention and almost instantly coalesced into his sealed form, the flawless katana materializing effortlessly in Renji's grasp.

Not missing a beat, he tossed the blade to Byakuya, leaving his hand up in expectation; a second later, Zabimaru's hilt smacked solidly into Renji's palm. Sheathing the blade, he nodded Minori over, and the woman stepped carefully through the shields that surrounded the training field.

"Isn't it your day off?" Renji asked, one eyebrow raised, as she stopped a few paces from him and snapped off a textbook-perfect salute that was only slighly marred by her sardonic expression. The twist of her lips creased the bottom end of the long scar tracing its way down her face - a thin, clean line that ran from her right temple, slanting down over her cheekbone to end at the corner of her mouth. Zabimaru had left that mark on her a decade ago, when she'd been a fraction of a second too slow to dodge a strike during sparring.

Renji didn't feel any guilt over the scar - he had a similar one on his arm that ran from his shoulder halfway to his elbow, courtesy of Minori's own Kurotora. It would have been child's play for Unohana or any experienced medic to heal the injuries so that scars never formed, but neither of them wanted to surrender those marks of honor.

"It _was_ my day off," she answered sourly, "until the third, fourth and fifth seats of the Fifth Division and the third through _eighth_ seats of the Sixth all sent Hell Butterflies stating that they were unable to come to work this morning."

Behind Renji, Byakuya made a low sound of annoyance. "I will inform my Division that all future participation in social gatherings hosted by the Eleventh is strictly forbidden."

"Cheap sake and bad beer," Renji snickered, walking to the edge of the field to retrieve the towels he'd stowed there. "It'll get 'em every time."

* * *

"Dad?"

Ichigo jerked slightly as he sat up, eyes snapping open to meet a softly concerned blue-hazel gaze, framed by red-gold hair so ridiculously like his mother's, his sister's, his own. The face looked like none of them - a bit of Rukia around the eyes and mouth, mingled with Ichigo's stubborn chin and angular cheekbones. Her eyes, if he had to name a source, looked the most like Byakuya's grandfather, Ginrei - quiet and kind, with a gentle humor at their depths.

"Are you alright? Fifi said you and Jii-san argued today."

Ichigo snorted and dragged a hand across his face, grimacing as the pressure of his palm sent a spike of pain through his forehead. "He did, did he?" Fifi - the unfortunate nickname his daughter's Zanpakutou had somehow managed to acquire during her childhood and never shaken - had never been shy about sharing the day's events with his young mistress, something that Ichigo had found a bit unsettling at first.

Despite the fact that Kaien's Zanpakutou - which had been saddled with the nickname of Neba - was not _quite_ so forthcoming, the twins had formed bonds with their blades that ran as deep as any Ichigo had ever seen, and they had done so in a matter of a very few short years. Although the blades, to his knowledge, had never given the twins their full names - hence why, a decade and a half later, they were still being referred to as Fifi and Neba - their relationships were still close enough to rival even Byakuya and Hitsugaya's legendary bonds.

"We did argue," Ichigo acknowledged at last, feeling his daughter's gaze pressing on him even without opening his eyes. "And I brought up Ryuuken, like an idiot, so if you feel his reiatsu go to staggering drunk later this evening -"

"We'll know it's all your fault, right, Dad?" a second, cheerier voice interrupted, and Ichigo lifted his head enough to send a mild glare in his son's direction.

Dropping his backpack on the floor - very carefully, in deference to his tablet-computer if not his father's headache - Kaien turned his disarming grin in his father's direction, the bright smile taking the sting out of his teasing.

"Ass," Masaki shot at her brother, although the insult was entirely without heat. Kaien, for his part, grinned even wider, utterly unrepentant, dark-amber eyes shining with amusement.

"No worries, Dad, we'll keep an eye out for him. Or at least Masaki and that tweed snob of hers can -"

"He's not a snob, Kaien," Masaki sighed, the thousandth repetition paid no more attention than the first.

" - because my girlfriend and I are going to be out dancing," Kaien finished with a flourish, tossing his head so that his hair - as pitch-black as Rukia's and peculiar to see, framing a face nearly identical to Ichigo's own - elected to temporarily abandon obedience to the laws of gravity. When he straightened again, however, his hair remained at an entirely implausible angle, standing completely on end and angled slightly to the left.

"Go wash the gel out of your hair, idiot," Masaki laughed, shaking her head. "Your big-boobed girlfriend isn't going to be impressed if you show up looking like a bad Adam Lambert impersonator."

"Yes, gods forbid I turn up looking like a rock icon and international sex symbol," Kaien smirked, miming a few chords on an air guitar.

"A _gay_ sex symbol," Masaki pointed out, eyes narrowing with cynical humor.

Kaien blinked, hands abandoning his imaginary guitar. "...I'll be in the shower."

Shaking his head in amusement, Ichigo watched his son jog off up the stairs to the shower. Kaien wasn't homophobic - rather the opposite, really, he had embraced his younger brother's sexuality with the same cheerful enthusiasm he did everything else in life, and he, like Ichiro, had come home bruised and bloodied from school more than once, defending Sado from bullies who thought they could take their frustrations out on the younger boy.

And when it had come time for Kaien and Masaki to graduate to high school and leave their brother behind, it had been Kaien himself who took Sado onto the mats and taught him to fight; not just the polite, formal martial arts that all the children knew, but the harder, dirtier style of the gangs and streets that would help keep him safe.

Despite the fact that Kaien and Masaki had known from the time they could walk that they would one day bear the weight of the Soul Society on their shoulders, they had fought to keep their lives as normal as possible.

Lessons from Hikifune and other members of the Guard blended with college courses, and martial arts courses at Tatsuki's dojo alternated with sparring matches in the basement of the Shoten, the revolving door of Shinigami trainees through Karakura providing an unending stream of opponents. Not a single week went by in which one of the Captains or Lieutenants from the Gotei didn't pop in for a visit and a quick spar against Ichigo or one of his children, and the twins could navigate the Senkaimon with more ease than some of the Shinigami that routinely came through.

None of this managed to disrupt the social lives that the children had built; along with her other lessons, Masaki studied traditional music and dance, and Kaien, no matter how vehemently he tried to deny it, was a poet accomplished enough that even Byakuya had praised his haiku.

Both of them also dated, something Ichigo had been wary of at first, but the relationships were quiet things, never disrupting lessons or schooling, and began and ended with their own rhythm. Masaki, more restrained than her brother, would spend months with her boyfriends before moving on; Kaien changed his girlfriends more frequently than his bedsheets, his brashly cheerful, I'll-sleep-when-I'm-dead attitude attracting a seemingly endless stream of women, few of whom he kept for longer than a week or two.

Fortunately, his playboy demeanor masked a truly kind and decent soul; regardless of how long or short his relationships were, they always ended well, and he and his family remained on good terms with the girls afterwords.

"I should probably go and get changed as well, I am meeting Iwao for dinner this evening," Masaki said, her smile a little sheepish. "Kaien and I will keep an eye on Jii-san's reiatsu while we're out if you're heading back to Seireitei tonight."

Ichigo shook his head silently in response, one hand raising to tangle in the thin chain of the necklace he was wearing, thumb rubbing absently over the worn medallion. "No, Rukia's coming through late tonight. I'll be on patrol, you two go have fun."

"Thanks, Dad," Masaki smiled, dropping a fast kiss on her father's cheek before darting upstairs after her brother. Ichigo smiled faintly as he watched her go, silently tracing the long-familiar outline of the gold coin at his throat.

He could still remember the reading of Chad's will; he'd loitered on the sidewalk outside the building, unable to bear going into the room with a dry-eyed but anguished Tatsuki and the rest of his friends, waiting in their silence while a bored lawyer handed out the possessions that Chad had deeded each of them.

The very thought of it reminded him too much of the days after the loss of his mother.

He'd been staring blankly at the sunset, seeing nothing but the inside of his thoughts, when the side door of the building opened and spilled Alec, the singer from Chad's band, out into the late-evening light.

Alec looked down to where Ichigo sat at the edge of the curb - his feet stretched out onto the asphalt, daring the nonexistent traffic to run over his toes - and stepped forward to sit beside him, curling one arm protectively around the guitar case he was carrying as he did so. They sat in silence for a long moment, watching the sky slowly darken, until the silence began to echo too loudly in Ichigo's ears.

"A guitar?" he asked finally, tilting his head towards the hard-side case on Alec's right.

"A bass," the singer answered with a faintly sheepish smile, his face terribly young under the fall of dye-streaked black bangs. "Belonged to Alec John Such himself. Frigging unreal."

Ichigo's bewilderment must have shown on his face, because Alec laughed softly, pulling the case over his lap and popping the catches to show Ichigo a glimpse of the instrument inside, gleaming reddish wood and a black fingerboard that all but sparkled the dimming light. "Original bassist for Bon Jovi, man. My namesake. My folks met at one of their shows in Tokyo." He paused, skimming a reverential hand over the polished wood before snapping the lid closed again. "My birthday's next week. Tatsuki said this was going to be my gift."

Divided between what to say - 'happy birthday' or 'I'm sorry'? - Ichigo contented himself with a soft 'oh,' watching quietly as Alec settled the case beside himself again before fishing into the pocket of his coat with one hand.

"This is for you, by the way," the singer added, elaborately casual, as he flipped a small box in Ichigo's direction. Battle-sharpened reflexes kicked in, darting Ichigo's hand out to catch the box before his mind had even processed the motion.

The box was tiny, really, small enough to nestle in his palm, and Ichigo instinctively knew what it contained. "I can't," he said simply, holding the box back towards the other man. "This needs to go to his son, or Tatsuki, or someone who's been a better friend -"

"Man, you don't get it, do you?" Alec interrupted, both hands raised, palms out. "Chad left it to you for a reason. Ichiro's gonna have a thousand things to remember his dad by, same for Tatsuki. And even if you two'd grown apart over the last few years, that didn't matter. You'd been his best friend, his partner, his right hand, for long enough. Nothing was going to change that. You were the guy who was with him when it mattered, right up to the last minute."

Reaching out, Alec gently closed Ichigo's fingers around the box, ignoring the tremor in Ichigo's hand. "You're the one that deserves it, Ichigo. Don't doubt that."

When Ichigo just stared back at him, speechless and stunned, Alec smiled faintly and pushed himself to his feet, gathering the guitar case as he went. "Look us up if you're ever in Tokyo, man. You know you're always welcome at our shows."

"I won't - wait, Tokyo?"

"Mmhm. Mizuiro's moving the band out to the big city," came the answer, punctuated by a rueful shrug. "The only reason we'd stayed based in Karakura so long was because of Chad and Tatsuki, really. Ties that bind, you know?"

Ichigo's hand closed almost convulsively around the tiny box he held, sharp corners digging into the flesh of his palm. "Yeah. I know. Good luck, Alec."

"You too, man," the singer answered breezily, and set off down the street as Ichigo turned his attention back to the box in his palm.

* * *

Stroking the gold coin at his throat, Ichigo thought silently of the price of friendships and loves won and lost, and wondered if it was too late to join his father for a drink.


	25. Forgotten and Remembered

A/N: Due to my work schedule (which is precisely the opposite of my updating schedule at the moment - unceasing!), I will NOT be doing a 250 Kiriban.

However, if you want to track me down at Dragon*Con in Atlanta this week, you might be able to convince me to work on a little something. Check out my Twitter account - LostInHeadSpace - I'll be tweeting photos and updates of what I'm doing.

Translator's Notes:

Hitoshi: Male name meaning 'even-tempered' or 'level'

* * *

BONDS OF HONOR

Chapter 25: Forgotten and Remembered

* * *

"What do you mean, 'you don't know'?" Matsumoto shrieked, her voice echoing in the cavernous space of the First Division's meeting hall. Across the room from her, Iba Tetsuzaemon flinched back a bit, trying to discretely obscure himself behind his Captain's massive form. Komamura merely glanced down at his Lieutenant, his ears twitching in amusement.

"My daughter is a member of your Division, you incompetent brute!" Matsumoto ignored the burst of badly-muffled snickers that swept the room at that - "And you, as the Lieutenant, are responsible for overseeing the training of all officers within the Squad! You should be cited for dereliction of duty -"

Hitsugaya snorted aloud. The piles of paperwork on Matsumoto's desk were once again threatening an avalanche that would bury the floor of the office in uncompleted forms, and she was lecturing someone else on poor work habits?

On either side of Iba, Minori and Yumichika were laughing openly at their flustered fellow Lieutenant.

"Yes, Iba, neglecting your ever-so-important duties in order to fight Ikkaku and drink cheap beer," Yumichika chided, batting his eyelashes and glittering. "You should be dreadfully ashamed of yourself -"

"Stop sparkling at him, Yumichika," Shuuhei sighed without turning his head, his gaze still fixed on the opposite wall. "It's disconcerting."

"Isn't that the entire point?" Morito Hitoshi, the Third Division Lieutenant, wondered rhetorically as Yumichika stopped sparkling to pout at the back of Hisagi's head. Kira muffled a snort of laughter with a badly-feigned cough, earning him a raised eyebrow from Renji.

"Matsumoto, you really are in no position to be lecturing anyone on dereliction of duty, given that you're managing to set a rather spectacular example entirely on your own," Hitsugaya pointed out, his icy tone easily masking his own amusement.

She swung back to him, going from full harridan mode to a heart-melting pout in the blink of an eye. "Captain! How can you say such horrible things about me?"

"Because they're true?" Renji coughed from the other side of the room, and Matsumoto went from pouting to scandalized before she'd even turned around.

"Don't you know better than to talk to a lady like that, Renji?"

"You're hardly a lady, Matsumoto," Hitsugaya muttered in the background, much to Kyouraku's exceedingly theatrical consternation, as Renji stared at the ceiling with crossed eyes and Minori very quietly continued laughing her backside off as Matsumoto continued to berate the redheaded Captain on his manners.

"Lieutenant Matsumoto."

The woman twitched in surprise, falling silent and barely stifling a squeak of alarm at the sound of Komamura's deep voice. "I, erm, yes, Komamura-taichou?"

"Your daughter's training is progressing well," the wolflike Captain informed her gravely, his ears twitching faintly as Matsumoto, blushing crimson, bowed her thanks to him and scurried back to her place in the lines.

The rest of the officers stifled their snickers as Yamamoto called the meeting to order.

* * *

The dull, stabbing hum at the back of his mind was what woke him, even before his phone, resting close on the nightstand, had a chance to squall its warning. Automatically, he reached out with one hand to mute the phone before the alarm could sound. His faint sigh of exasperation was lost in the steady drumming of rain against the bedroom window.

Beside him, Rukia rolled over in the bed, pale sheets catching and tangling around her as she moved, lavender eyes reflecting the muted glow of the streetlights outside. "Ichigo?"

Shaking his head slightly, he groped his badge off the surface of the bedside table. "I'll deal with it," he said quietly, clapping the badge against his chest and closing his eyes against the split-second of disorientation as his body fell back onto the soft pillows, leaving him standing at the foot of the bed.

"You do realize it's an Adjuchas, right?" Rukia asked, her voice sleep-slurred but her eyes alert.

"Yeah." Running a hand gently down Zangetsu's hilt, Ichigo felt the soft shiver of the blade's power echo through his spirit in response. "Not a problem."

"Arrogant," Rukia muttered, burying her nose back in the pillows - warm, dry pillows, Ichigo thought with an easily-suppressed stab of irritability - and was asleep by the time Ichigo slipped through the window and into the steady, soaking rain.

Following the echoing buzz of the Hollow's energy wasn't difficult; it wasn't taking any pains to hide itself. The power echoed through the atmosphere of the town with a clarity that could only have been deliberate, and Ichigo was still wondering just how stupid this Hollow had to be to make such a production of itself when the Hollow's signature vanished.

Not in the sense of 'stepped through a Gargaunta and returned to Hueco Mundo.' No, the power vanished with a snap-burst of overlaid energy, pure and cold, one that left a faint taste of ice and smoke in its wake.

* * *

Even deaf and blind, Ichigo would recognize the sense of a Quincy's power - cool, controlled, burning ice and frozen flame. So he wasn't terribly surprised when he dropped out of Shunpo in a small, ragged forest clearing at the foot of the mountains outside of town to find the air reeking of Hollow power and a lean figure in white glowering at the rain-soaked grass.

"Yo, Ishida," Ichigo greeted casually, stepping up beside his longtime friend. Uryuu's clothes - a pristinely white tunic and slacks, interrupted only by the rich blue of the crosses adorning the sleeves - were soaked through, as Ichigo would have expected, but otherwise unruffled, no splashes of dirt or blood marring the bright fabric. "I see it didn't give you any trouble."

"None whatsoever," Uryuu replied, voice grim and eyes hard behind rain-spattered glasses. "As I'm not the one who destroyed it."

The vague haze of an interrupted sleep was still muddling Ichigo's mind enough to excuse the beat of silence as he processed that information.

"You didn't?" he echoed, scratching his head absently as he raised his head, trying to taste the lingering power in the air more clearly. The signature of the energy was unquestionably Quincy. "Your father -"

"It wasn't him, either."

The last of the sleep-haze dispelled in a snap, and Ichigo turned warily to face the man beside him. He'd initially thought that Ishida was simply gathering himself in the aftermath of the battle - now, he could see that the young Quincy was as furious as Ichigo had ever seen him.

Long-fingered hands were clenched into fists tight enough to strain the seams of the leather gloves Ishida wore, angry tension vibrating through his arms and shoulders. His narrow jaw was clenched, his eyes gleaming like frozen steel behind his glasses.

"Who, then?" Ichigo asked, extending his senses to encompass the area around them, even as he kept a wary eye on his friend. "If there's another Quincy out there beside you and your father -"

The furious hiss of breath expelled through Uryuu's teeth was the only warning Ichigo had before the white-gloved hand fisted in the front of his saturated kosode, hauling him down until he was nose-to-nose with the slighter man.

"Kurosaki, you are going to listen to me very closely," Ishida hissed, jerking lightly at the bunched fabric in his hand to ensure he had Ichigo's complete attention. "My father and I are the only surviving members of our race. Every one of our people aside from the pair of us was wiped out by Kurotsuchi and the Seireitei. There are no other Quincy."

"I know that," Ichigo countered carefully, mindful of the delicate silver chain suspended from the wrist just below his throat. "But if there are no other Quincy, Ishida, then who destroyed the Hollow?"

Tight, rapid breaths hissed through Uryuu's teeth for a moment longer, before cool logic reasserted itself, forcing the trembling hand to unknot from the front of Ichigo's shihakusho. Stepping back, Uryuu ran his fingers across his temples, pushing back the strands of saturated hair that clung stubbornly to his too-pale face.

"There are no other Quincy," he repeated, more to himself than to Ichigo. "Not unless my father is a greater hypocrite and liar than I already know him to be."

Ichigo cocked an eyebrow at his friend, swiping water off his forehead with the edge of his hand. "I thought you two had learned to get along."

The still-pouring rain had replaced it in the time it took Ishida to muster a derisive snort.

"Get along?" Uryuu echoed, the edge of sarcasm in his voice so cold that Ichigo was astonished the raindrops around him didn't freeze as they fell. "My father and I tolerate one another on a professional basis, Kurosaki. I allowed him to train me to regain my powers, and he allows me to serve at the hospital because I am a credit to the department. None of that changes the fact that he is still an intolerant, hypocritical liar who is incapable of acknowledging any emotion beyond irritation. 'Getting along' has never entered the picture."

Ichigo let a heartbeat pass, silent aside from the steady drum of the rain. "You do remember that my father had lost his powers while they were together, right?"

"Of course," the Quincy answered sourly. "Because losing our powers always means we lose ourselves." Turning away, he added flatly, "I need to go speak with my father. Go home, Kurosaki. You're getting wet."

Ichigo didn't bother to reply - any comment he could have made would have been lost in the wet splash of Ishida's Hirenkyaku departure.

Frowning to himself, Ichigo turned and quietly set off for home.

* * *

Breakfast in the Kurosaki household had never been what one would call a peaceful affair, and the latest generation, all Kuchiki influences aside, were bidding fair to surpass their predecessors in the amount of chaos they could cause over the breakfast table.

Ichigo dodged a flying spoon with reflexes that had been honed at his own childhood breakfasts, catching the airborne utensil and tossing it back in the direction it had come without ever taking his attention from the calendar on the cellphone in his other hand.

"Oy, Rukia! There was a message this morning from Urahara -"

"I already called him back," Rukia interrupted from the counter, bowls clattering as she and Yuzu dished rice and eggs for the children arguing at the table.

" - actually took stock of a woman beyond her bust measurement -"

" - tried dating someone for fun rather than educational purposes?"

Sado, meanwhile, had his iPod plugged very firmly into his ears, fighting to keep his attention on the book in his hands while his siblings argued next to him.

" - not giving my girlfriends enough credit, an appreciable bust and a worthwhile intellect aren't mutually exclusive," Kaien remarked haughtily, before dropping his eyes to his sister's less-than-awe-inspiring chest. "Although in your case..."

"Hey," Ichigo snapped, sharply enough to call the attention of all three children to him as he collected three filled bowls from the counter and brought them to the table, Rukia and Yuzu trailing close behind with three more. "Enough bickering, you two. If your dates are going to cause this much trouble - "

"You're going to forbid us to date?" Kaien interrupted, incredulous, Ichigo shook his head in reply, setting the bowls down in front of the children and taking his seat as Rukia handed him his own.

"I'm not going to forbid you to do anything," Ichigo answered wearily, scooping a clump of rice into his mouth. "You're both enough like me that it would be pointless anyway," he added, between chews. He paused long enough to swallow and let both children breathe a faint sigh of relief before continuing. "However, I am going to ask that you bring your significant others home so that your mother and I can meet them."

A dual outburst of something resembling incredulous horror answered him, and Ichigo sat back, masking his amusement behind a blank scowl as he waited for the pair to lapse back to silence. Rukia, beside him, kept her head down and her attention apparently focused on her meal, but he could feel her amusement in the cool touch of her reiatsu.

"It's not negotiable," he said levelly, when their protests had finished. "If your dates are causing this much of a headache to me, I want to see for myself that they're worth it. You're both planning on meeting up tonight, right? You can bring them here for a few minutes before you go out to your dates."

"What about Sado's boyfriend, though?" Kaien interjected quickly, and Ichigo blinked in confusion, a bite of egg suspended on his chopsticks, halfway to his mouth.

"Sado and Ichiro aren't together -"

"I don't mean Ichiro," Kaien answered, ignoring Sado's angry hiss and frantic headshake. "He's got this new guy already -"

"That didn't take long," Rukia commented dryly, lifting her head to survey her younger son, who was currently glaring daggers at her elder. Kaien, completely unbothered, looped an arm around his brother's neck and pulled him close enough to scrub his knuckles against the younger's scalp.

"He just asked me yesterday," Sado answered, swatting his brother's hands away in exasperation. "I didn't think I needed to mention it."

"It's actually kind of sweet," Masaki spoke up, throwing a quelling glance of her own towards her twin, who was grinning with the sort of manic glee Ichigo had come to associate with an impending migraine. "He's been working at the Dojo for the last few weeks and he's had an eye on Sado from the first moment, but he never approached him until yesterday."

Which sounded... reassuring. Probably too reassuring, if Sado's expression of wary hesitance was any indication. However, his elder son wouldn't let the reassurance last too long.

"You're leaving out the part where he's an MMA cage fighter working at the Dojo on community service for that drunk and disorderly charge," Kaien grinned, waving his egg-laden chopsticks at his sister, who sighed and dropped her head against her palm. Sado, for his part, dragged the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head with a groan.

"Dinner. Tonight," Ichigo said resolutely, valiantly resisting the urge to drop his own head into his hands. "All of them."

"Sounds perfect," Kaien snickered, leaning over to rub a soothing hand on his younger brother's shoulder, silently apologizing for breaking the boy's news. "You're gonna love Miyuki, guys. She runs a shelter for battered women in the city." At his sister's raised eyebrow, he added with a shameless leer, "She's also got a rack that makes Aunt Orihime look flat-chested."

"Kaien, you're a pig," sighed Masaki, scooping up the last of her rice and swallowing it hastily. "And we're going to be late for class if you don't hurry up."

Somewhere in the flurry of the children bolting the last of their breakfasts, Rukia's phone sang out part of the score from the movie Frankenstein - "What does Urahara want now?" she huffed, pushing away from the table to answer, and Ichigo felt his own phone buzz against his hip.

It was a text from Uryuu - unlike the sender, the message was straightforward and uncomplicated; 'Meet me for lunch,' followed by the address of a restaurant close to Karakura General.

A frown creasing his forehead, Ichigo set a reminder in his phone and set about ushering his children out the door.

* * *

The restaurant was only a half a mile from the hospital, well-used to playing host to doctors seeking a few minutes of quiet amidst their hectic days. Ishida was obviously a frequent enough customer that he had some weight there - they had been escorted to one of the Western-style tables secluded on the outdoor veranda almost instantly upon arrival.

"I never did thank you for speaking to Ichiro, did I?" Ichigo asked abruptly, as their waitress hurried off. Uryuu stopped in the middle of unfolding his napkin and blinked for a moment, clearly struggling to recall the incident.

"No," he answered after a long moment, "not that I expected you to. I was simply doing what needed to be done."

Ichigo, long used to his friend's taciturn rudeness, didn't bat an eye at the cool tone. "I spoke to Sado about it, too. Although I still don't see what the problem was with the two of them being together."

The sardonic snort that answered him was something Uryuu had perfected over the years; a mingling of derisive condescension, weary irritation, and a hint of the smug superiority that seemed inbred into Quincy. "You'll understand when you're older, Kurosaki."

One eyebrow raised, challenging. "Is that what you told Ichiro?"

Long fingers pressed frameless glasses higher up a narrow nose as Uryuu shifted in his seat, turning his shoulder to Ichigo. "No, I gave him the actual explanation."

The eyebrow dropped, forehead bunching in a once-characteristic scowl. "The one you won't give me."

Spinning back to face his friend, Uryuu slammed both palms down on the table, hard enough to jostle the heavy wrought-iron. "The one I can't give you, Kurosaki!" he spat back, his voice a snarling whisper. "Dammit, did you think that you and your family are the only ones the Royal Guard has been visiting?"

For the space of a breath, Ichigo could only stare at his companion in astonishment. Uryuu, a frown etching lines around his mouth, turned away again, crossing his legs and withdrawing a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He tapped one out and lit it even as the waitress returned with their food; she gave it a disapproving look, but did not comment.

Ichigo waited until the woman had vanished back inside the building before venturing his reply. "Until you said that, I had thought we were the only ones the Guard was visiting. What do they want with you?"

"If I could tell you," Ishida answered irritably, taking a long pull on the cigarette and blowing the smoke deliberately towards Ichigo's face, "don't you think I would have by now?"

Ichigo's shock was enough that he didn't even think to object to the smoke, other than absently waving it away. "Uryuu, if the Guard is threatening you or Orihime -"

"They're not threatening us," came the weary response. "In fact, they've been exceedingly courteous to this point, although that can obviously change at any time."

A thin curl of smoke drifted upwards from the cigarette clenched between Uryuu's narrow fingers, and Ichigo slanted an annoyed glance it. "I thought you quit."

Sighing, Uryuu took one last drag from the cigarette before pinching the glowing end between his callused fingertips, crushing the ember into ashes and smoke. "I thought I had, too," he answered wearily, setting the butt aside and pulling his plate closer. "I didn't call you out here to discuss my failings, Ichigo. I need to know if you or your father have had any recent contact with Ryuuken."

Ichigo stopped short, his own chopsticks halfway to his mouth. "No," he answered slowly, confusion and concern weighting the single word. "I haven't seen him in months, not since that Vasto Lorde broke through from Hueco Mundo, and as far as I know oyajii hasn't spoken to him since..." He trailed off, waving his unoccupied hand in a vague gesture that managed to encompass 'whatever the hell happened to make them stop speaking to each other.'

Uryuu merely nodded, unsurprised.

"I was afraid of that," he answered simply, as Ichigo cocked an eyebrow at him in inquiry and popped a bite of curry into his mouth.

"My father is missing," Uryuu said grimly, and calmly passed over his glass of water when Ichigo choked on his curry.

"What do you mean, 'missing'?" Ichigo demanded hoarsely, once he'd managed to send the uncooperative curry in the right direction.

Uryuu's eyes narrowed into an icy glare behind his glasses. "How much definition does the word require, Kurosaki? He's missing, as in 'not present in the location he is expected.'"

"Missing since when?" Ichigo demanded, taking another mouthful of water before it occurred to him that it was Uryuu's glass. Shaking his head slightly, he passed the glass back to his friend.

"From what I can determine, about eight days time," Uryuu answered levelly, and Ichigo choked again. Uryuu handed the glass back without blinking.

"Eight days?" Ichigo echoed, disbelieving. "And you're just mentioning this now?"

"I didn't find out until last night," Uryuu snapped, and scowled at Ichigo's incredulous stare. "As incredible as it must seem to you, Kurosaki, my father and I do not see each other every day. Eight days is not a remotely unusual period of time for us to go without contact."

"You work in the same frigging hospital, how can you not -"

"We work in very different sections of the hospital, Kurosaki. He is the director, and I am an ER physician. It's very rare that I'm called to speak to him unless I irreversibly fuck something up."

Ichigo winced, both at the tone and the profanity. Uryuu rarely swore, and for him to do so with such venom in it meant that, despite his outward demeanor, he was well and truly furious.

"You don't think that the Guard -" Ichigo began, but was cut off by the silent shake of Uryuu's head.

"No, not the Guard. My ability to detect reiatsu is too refined; I would have sensed their presence, no matter what pains they took to mask themselves. There was nothing there."

* * *

Long, callused fingers spasmed, grasping frantically at empty air. The muted rattle of chains echoed briefly, the sound echoing off walls of reiatsu-blocking stone.

Heavy manacles secured the thin wrists to the side of the unforgiving steel table, the chains short enough to keep those deadly hands nearly still, save for the restless, agonized motion of the fingers.

The chest of the man was bare, pale, scarred skin exposed to the cold air of the underground room, and dozens of wires ran like the webs of insane spiders between the skin and the banks of monitors that ringed the edge of the claustrophobic space.

A spark of electricity danced across the end of one of the wire leads, fastened to the skin centimeters above the man's heart. The pale form on the table jerked, struggling to twist away from the pain of the spark, head thrashing above the metal collar that held the elegant neck in place.

"Struggling won't do you any good, you know. The reiatsu extraction process is quite inescapable."

Above the collar, a narrow mouth twisted, any insult or reply that might have been made held in check by the heavy gag that had been forced between the teeth days before. Even with his voice silenced, though, the eyes that glared through a fall of silver-white bangs at the tormenter said enough.

* * *

"_Ichimaru_!"

Kensei's sharp bark was enough to make Hollows quail even under the best of circumstances; three o'clock in the morning could hardly be qualified as such.

Gin bolted upright on his futon, clenching the sheets around his chest in an instinctive, terrified effort to protect himself from an enemy that wasn't there, wasn't his own. The thin yukata he slept in was soaked with cold sweat and clinging to his skin, leaving him shivering with a cold that went far deeper than the temperature of the room.

"You were screaming," Kensei said, his voice softening as much as it ever did, and Gin fought down the tremors that were threatening to overtake his body as he turned to the older man.

"Call the Quincy kid," he whispered, forcing his voice through a throat that felt ragged from screaming. "Tell 'im his daddy's in trouble."

* * *

Within a dozen acres of dusty red stone, concealed from the view of the outside world within the depths of a mountain peak outside Rukongai, lay a house.

It was not a grandiose house, nothing like the sprawling manor complex he was accustomed and entitled to, but it was sufficient. Within the cave there was no concern with rain nor wind, so any weaknesses left by the inexpert hands that assembled it would remain unexploited by the weather.

His footsteps were quiet on the orange-red ground, but enough to alert his servant to slide the door open as he approached. He swept past the crouching man without a glance, not caring to rest his eyes on the wasted figure.

"The plans progress apace," he announced, kicking the cumbersome wooden shoes away from his feet and letting them land where they would. Even before they had settled, the servant had shuffled over to retrieve them, staying on his knees out of respect to his Master. It was a formality that his Master insisted upon, despite the agony that never-quite-healed damage to the servant's knees caused him.

Settling his burden on a low table, Kuchiki Masa drew back in satisfaction as he regarded his work. His work, not his servant's, as disgusting as the thought was. Tsutomu, once so average as to be nearly invisible, had been ruined as an agent by the scars inflicted on him by that hellish fallen Princess of the Shihoin and her pet assassin.

He had been further ruined by the dagger that Masa himself had plunged through his throat, the night that Tsutomu made his way back to his Master when he should have been dead.

"Put these with the rest," he ordered simply, and left the room without another word, confident he would be obeyed.

He did not linger long enough to cast a glance at his servant's face. Had he done so, the sight would have shocked him; the man's dark eyes, one of them half-hidden in the blackened bruise Masa had inflicted on him the week before, narrowing in something far too close to anger as he raised his gaze from the hundreds of slim silver disks on the table to his Master's back.

The twisted lips moved, briefly, a soundless mutter from an all-but-voiceless throat. Ignoring, for the moment, both the orders of his Master and the pile of Hollow bait-disks on the table, Tsutomu raised one hand to rub his thumb contemplatively over the narrow scar on his throat.


	26. Unseen and Unexpected

A/N: My sole New Year's Resolution: _Write more_. So... working on it. MASSIVE thanks are due to Iris, who has been Beta, idea-bouncing-wall, pseudo-therapist, and just about everything else a writer-in-crisis could ever need. This wouldn't have gotten written without her.

* * *

**BONDS OF HONOR**

Chapter 26: Unseen and Unexpected

* * *

The Hollow was a powerful one, barely more than human-sized and riding the edge of power between an Adjuchas and a Vasto Lorde.

One brown eye narrowed, intent as it sought the perfect center of the Hollow's snarling mask.

A single, deft movement of one lean hand, and the macabre smile vanished into swirling motes of light, torn apart by the stolen Quincy energy that had struck it.

Lowering his hand, Sousuke Aizen smiled.

* * *

"It happened again," were Uryuu's opening words, when Ichigo lifted his phone to his ear at twenty minutes past three in the morning. "A Hollow was eliminated with a Quincy power signature."

Stifling a groan, Ichigo rolled over in bed, flipping on the lamp as he did so and wincing as the light struck his eyes. He'd only been asleep for an hour or two, having been helping Uryuu and the others scour the city in a fruitless search for any trace of Ryuuken. "Do you need me out there?"

There was a pause on Uryuu's end, the Quincy's sharp breathing the only sound. In the stillness, Rukia's cool hand settled itself gently against Ichigo's shoulder, both a reassurance and a question, and Ichigo heard the soft murmur of Zangetsu's voice as the Zanpakutou spoke between themselves.

"No," Uryuu answered finally, his voice shaken but decisive. "There's nothing you can do at the moment, Kurosaki. Yoruichi is with Orihime and I, she will help us investigate. I'm sorry for waking you."

"Uryuu, if you need me -"

"I don't," came the ready response, but Ichigo could hear the quiet gratitude in his friend's voice. "Go back to sleep, Kurosaki. You have to work in the morning."

"It already is -" Ichigo was forced to pause as a yawn bulldozed its way out of his mouth, interrupting his sentence. "Already _is_ morning," he finished with a grimace. "You sure you'll be all right?"

There was a muffled commotion and an indignant squawk on the other end of the phone, and Ichigo was already reaching for his Combat Badge when Yoruichi's voice came over the line.

"You sound like you don't trust me to take care of Uryuu-kun, Ichigo," came the teasing laugh, and Ichigo slumped back against his pillows with a sigh, letting his hand fall limply across his stomach.

"Yeah, well, cats don't have a great track record when it comes to trustworthiness," he teased back, but the joke was feeble at best, and punctuated by another forceful yawn.

"Go back to sleep, Ichigo," the Shihoin princess ordered him, her voice gentle. "I know it's hard for you to accept, but we can do things for ourselves, you realize."

Mustering an indelicate snort from somewhere between his yawns, Ichigo muttered a goodnight to his former trainer before hanging up.

* * *

Despite the passing of more than two decades and a change of proprietorship, the meeting room at the Urahara Shoten had changed very little. One could, with some effort, trace the history of the room by the marks left on the top of the low table sitting in its center - a shallow indentation in the wood at one edge where Ichigo's fist had once slammed down on it, a dozen tiny scrapes in the center from Urahara's countless pieces of equipment, a single long, thin scratch that might have been caused by the tip of an unsheathed Zanpakutou, an odd wavering stain from a mundane spill of miso soup.

"You're going to get splinters up your nose," Hirako Shinji commented, setting a cup of restorative tea down on the surface of the table, nearly on top of the wavering stain.

Ichimaru Gin, who was slumped over the table with his head buried in his folded arms, mumbled incoherently in reply, faint tremors of exhaustion still chasing their way across his shoulders.

"I kept meaning to have Tessai sand it down," Urahara remarked, not quite apologetically, from the opposite side of the table in question, his eyes never once leaving the holographic map projected in the air before him. "Ichigo, you said you felt no trace of any reiatsu in your designated area?"

"None." Ichigo, sitting in the far corner of the room, made that pronouncement with an irritated scowl. "There's nothing in that sector, not even a wandering ghost."

Grimacing faintly, Urahara manipulated the controls of the holographic map to shade Ichigo's section lightly blue. Over two-thirds of the map was already similarly tinted.

"Sooner or later, we're going to have to address the fact that Ryuuken may have been taken out of Karakura entirely," Tatsuki grumbled, only to receive a quelling glare from Kiego. Contrite but unwilling to apologize, she glanced warily at Uryuu, but the Quincy hadn't so much as batted an eye.

The entire Karakura Crew - with the additions of Shinji, Kensei, Yoruichi, Urahara, and Karin - had been patrolling the city in sectors since early that morning, scouring it for any trace of the absent Ryuuken. The holographic map was making the results of their search all-too-painfully clear.

An incoherent mumble from the surface of the table drew everyone's attention back to the center of the room, Shinji arching an eyebrow as he turned.

"What was that, Ichimaru?"

"I said, 'girl's gotta poin','" Gin answered irritably, lifting his head from the scarred wood. His hands trembled as he reached for the cup of tea Shinji had left him, his already-minimal strength nearly depleted by his hours-long participation in the search. Nights of screaming nightmares, showing him bare flashes of the torture Ryuuken was enduring, had raised the hope that he might be able to track down the elder Quincy's location, but to no avail. Karin - who'd been partnered with him, despite Ichigo's protests - had been forced to all-but-carry the former Shinigami back. "How long're we gonna keep chasin' our tails roun' th' city b'fore we expand th' search?"

"The Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Divisions have all agreed to send in training squads to assist with the search, under the command of their Lieutenants," Urahara offered, grimacing faintly as a quiet shake of the head from Kensei had him shading another sector of the map the soft blue of a negative result.

"Which is precisely what we don't need, three dozen untrained Shinigami mucking up the reishi signatures around the city," Uryuu snapped, the thin leather gloves he wore squeaking in protest as his fists tightened almost beyond the limit of their seams.

"They will be searching beyond the city limits of Karakura town," Urahara countered, as the door slid open again, admitting a grim-faced Rukia, "therefore allowing us to search only areas that have been predetermined to - is that your phone, Rukia-san?"

Not bothering to hide her grimace, the woman spun around back out again, although not before her answering "What, Kaien?" was heard.

"Rukia-san will be assisting the other Lieutenants by taking charge of Byakuya-san's trainee officers," Urahara continued, his fingers flickering through the holographic display to expand and recolor the map, spreading an ice-white tint over a rough third of the area surrounding Karakura. The remaining two thirds were divided more-or-less equally under tints of lavender and green, respectively. "Ayasegawa-san and Minori-san will be -"

"_Shit_!"

The exclamation from the hallway was loud enough to turn heads, even before the sliding door was thrown open again, revealing the petite, purple-eyed fury clutching her cellphone to her chest.

"Ichigo!" Rukia snapped, her expression half a shade shy of frantic. "We told the kids to bring their dates to dinner tonight! Kaien's already back home, and the other two are on their way!"

"Shit," Ichigo agreed feelingly, already scrambling to his feet. "Guys, we've gotta -"

"Go, go, by all means. There's nothing more you can do tonight," Urahara answered, his tone dismissive. Ichigo replied with a single raised finger, but paused halfway to the door, a look of perplexity on his face.

"Does anyone remember where the hell I left my body?"

* * *

Out of breath, Ichigo shoved open the back door of the house, kicking his shoes off with barely a thought as to where they would land and nearly getting his slippers on the wrong feet in his haste. He'd found his body - stuffed unceremoniously in a closet at the Shoten along with a handful of Gigai - and been forced to rush back to his house the human way.

Rukia - who, like an intelligent individual, left her gigai at home, on the bed, where it wouldn't be full of muscle cramps when she reentered it - had returned home ahead of him, to greet their children and guests, while Ichigo made a poor showing of himself as a host.

Slipping silently through the door to the kitchen, he was immediately pinned under three gazes - Rukia's annoyed lavender, Kaien's laughing amber, and an unfamiliar pair of quiet, deep aqua.

"Nice of you to join us, Ichigo," Rukia said dryly, taking in her husband's flushed cheeks with a faint roll of her eyes. "Now that you've gotten yourself back together -"

"Dad, this is Miyuki, my girlfriend," Kaien interrupted, diplomatic if not tactful. "She's a Psychology student at Karakura University, shooting for her doctorate, and she runs a shelter for battered women in the city."

Rising from her seat at the table, the Mikuki offered a shallow bow to Ichigo, one of polite acknowledgement rather than submission. Her hair - dark golden-brown and an interesting contrast to her dusky skin and bright eyes - skimmed across her shoulders with the movement. "It is an honor to meet you, Doctor Kurosaki," she said levelly, straightening and extending a hand to him. "Kaien speaks very highly of you."

"That's certainly a switch," Ichigo muttered, shaking the proffered hand and keeping his eyes firmly above the level of her collarbone. Suffice it to say that Kaien had not been exaggerating the size of Miyuki's chest.

Rukia, as ever a miniature whirlwind, swept past him with a heavily-laden tea tray in her hands. "Masaki and Iwao are waiting in the living room, and Sado and Takeo should be here -"

The slamming of the front door, followed by Sado's decidedly irritated call of 'Tadaima!' interrupted her only for a split second. "...right now. Grab the cakes, please?"

Mouthing profanities, Ichigo did as he was ordered, steadfastly ignoring Kaien's laughter.

* * *

Masaki's boyfriend had settled by her side on the living-room couch, his shoulders stiffly set and subdued tension written in every line of his lean body. There was something so familiar about him, an echo of... _something_, something that was too distorted by the tidy button-up shirt and the neat sport coat, both of which seemed out of place against the slightly messy, too-long black hair. The man's head was down, his face obscured by a tousled spill of bangs as he read something on the screen of his phone, Masaki peering at it over his shoulder.

From the entrance hall, Ichigo could hear his younger son's voice, amusement clear in the words. "You know, if you wouldn't insist on wearing motorcycle boots, it wouldn't take you five minutes to change every time you entered a house."

The voice that answered was loud, rough, and familiar enough to throw Ichigo nearly a quarter-century back in time, to a crater in the middle of a Karakura street or the bloodied sands of Hueco Mundo, facing down a warrior with a madman's smile. "I _like_ my fucking motorcycle boots!"

Rukia, still standing in front of him, felt the instant tension in his energy, and turned enough to throw a questioning glance over her shoulder. She wouldn't recognize the voice - it had never whispered destruction in her ear as it had in Ichigo's.

The man that stepped into the room behind his son had that same build, tall and heavily muscled, the same casually arrogant stride and carriage, the same impossible blue eyes. The face was different - the mask-fragment gone, the angles not quite so harsh, and the wild mop of hair was mostly black, with metallic blue color only staining the tips.

Nonetheless, Ichigo felt his reiatsu surge in response to the sight of his old foe, one he'd thought dead over twenty years before. "_You_," he snarled, and the man stopped short, his face paling as he looked over Sado's head and met Ichigo's gaze.

A gasp from the sofa caught his attention enough to pull his glare from the returned threat and turn it back to the man sitting beside his daughter, head now raised.

The man's eyes, wide with shock, were a deep emerald green that Ichigo had only known once in his life, and never forgotten. Their memory had haunted his dreams unceasingly since his return from those dead lands.

The dull thump-crack of the plate he carried striking the floor at his feet was almost lost beneath the sudden screaming of his breath, the blood in his ears.

Behind him, there was a soft sound - not quite a gasp, the barest indrawn breath - barely loud enough for him to hear, but Kaien's sharp "Miyuki?' was the only warning before all three of his visitors collapsed.

* * *

A soft breeze rippled through the branches of the sakura grove, drawing forgotten wisps of fragrance to where the group of people sat on the veranda, basking in the last warmth of the evening. The table the group had arrayed themselves around was well-laden with food and drink, and the conversation was lively.

Byakuya and Renji, anchoring one end of the table, were navigating the multiple discussions with perfect ease, despite the quiet mutterings of their Zanpakutou within their minds.

At the opposite end of the table from the noble Head and his Consort, their 'Rukongai brats,' Haru and Ko, were spiritedly debating training techniques with Ise Nanao and Kuchiki Ginrei, while Kyouraku listened in amusement, interjecting a comment whenever there was a pause.

Ukitake, seated as ever at his partner's side, was discussing the Kuchiki archives across the width of the table with Byakuya's young cousin, Fumio, who looked delighted to have the Captain express an interest in his work.

Between Fumio and Ginrei, the white-veiled figure of Hikifune Kirio made an odd addition to the gathering, but nobody had questioned her when she arrived to the gathering at Ginrei's side.

Having grown accustomed to Senbonzakura and Zabimaru's constant discussions in the background of their minds, both Byakuya and Renji instantly snapped alert when the Zanpakutou's chatter stopped with shattering abruptness.

As Renji sat bolt-upright at his side, jerking the table's conversations to a halt, Byakuya heard Zabimaru mutter a soft '_uh-oh_' in the ringing silence within his mind.

The dull buzz of Renji's phone vibrating from inside his kosode was clearly audible a split-second later, and Byakuya knew even before his partner had withdrawn the phone that it would be Rukia on the other end of the line. "Excuse me, please," Renji muttered to the rest of the table, yanking out the small device even as he rose to his feet. Whether the other occupants of the table even heard him, Byakuya wasn't certain; every other Shinigami present had the distant, unfocused look of someone deep in conversation with their blade.

As Renji retreated a polite distance from the table, Byakuya sank into the connection with the Zanpakutou, feeling the links between them nearly vibrating with tense energy. Beyond the familiar cool touch of Senbonzakura and the banked fire that was Zabimaru, he could just make out the distant cold that was Sode no Shirayuki. Beyond the snow-spirit, he could taste the dark, ancient fire that he knew was Ichigo's Zangetsu.

Senbonzakura energy slid closer to his, and for a fleeting moment, he could feel a flicker of the other spirits' emotions; confused concern from Sode no Shirayuki and something that felt oddly like smug satisfaction from Zangetsu.

"The kids are WHAT?" Renji bellowed into the phone, so loudly that he jolted both Byakuya and Nanao from their meditations. Looking ruffled, Nanao shoved imperiously at her glasses, only to knock them askew when Kyouraku burst into laughter beside her and startled her into jumping again.

"...shit," Renji sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Wasn't expecting to see that lot come back, but for your kids to wind up dating them...?" Despite his best efforts, a snicker slipped out with the last word, and he was forced to pull the phone away from his ear when an evidently unimpressed Rukia began shouting loudly enough for it to be audible at the table.

"Hey, don't yell at _me_ 'cause you married a Fate magnet," Renji shot back when her tirade paused. "Although you'd think some sorta law of ironic averages woulda kicked in by now..." Wincing, he pulled the phone away again. Shunsui, who had nearly settled, dissolved into laughter a second time, earning himself a disapproving glare from Ukitake and a bewildered stare from Fumio.

"It's not that funny, Kyouraku," Renji snapped, before returning to the phone. "Sorry, sorry. No, Kyouraku just thinks it's all fucking hysterical. Look, is everything under control there?"

He didn't sound terribly concerned, which wasn't a great surprise; if Rukia had been in any danger, her first action would not have been to place a phone call.

"Of course Urahara's not answering his phone," Renji sighed. "Are you sure they're gonna stay peaceful, or do you want our help with them?" After an extended pause, he nodded slightly. "If you're sure. Take care of yourself, a'right?" Hanging up without saying goodbye, he shoved the phone back into his kosode and returned to the table.

"Hikifune-san, somebody up there needs to be keeping better track of the reincarnation cycle," were his first words as he reached them. "Ichigo's got three reincarnated Espada passed out in his living room."

Brown eyes widened behind the slit of her veil. "Already? But they shouldn't be..." Breaking off the sentence with a shake of her head, she pushed back from the table and made to rise. Renji couldn't see exactly what happened - whether her robes caught on some unseen protrusion, or her ankle turned beneath her, or something else altogether - but whatever the reason, Hikifune stumbled. She caught herself again, not on the table as he would have expected, but on the shoulders of the men to either side of her - Ginrei and Fumio.

The flash was so fast, so subtle, that Renji probably would have missed it were he not already watching the Guard so closely. The subtle flex of her fingers against the two mens' shoulders, the split-second tightening of her eyes, and the the upwards flicker-_snap_

of her reiatsu as she straightened. Then, in an eyeblink, nothing was amiss - Hikifune shook out her hakama in quick, familiar motions, apologized quickly but sincerely to the two Kuchiki men, and announced to the table at large that she would investigate the Espada's return, before vanishing into Flashstep.

"Oh, my," Kyouraku piped up, an occasional chuckle still cracking his ostensibly calm facade. "The Espada have returned to pursue Kurosaki's blood in _romantic_ terms now? Well, Yama-jii should be pleased. Taming the wild Espada with sexual wiles - "

"I am quite certain sexual wiles were not involved," Byakuya interrupted, glowering.

"We'll go on to the Twelfth Division and gather as much data as we can on their history and reincarnations before we present this to Genryuusei-Sensei," Ukitake sighed, ignoring his partner to meet Renji and Byakuya's eyes. "If they have truly found their way through the cycle of reincarnation, providing they wish no harm on us, there is little action the Gotei may take against them."

"We'll have to remind the old goat of that, no doubt," Kyouraku sighed, and snatched a couple of tea-cakes off the plate in front of him as he hauled himself to his feet. "And we might want to plan this debate a little better than the last one."

Given that their last 'debate' with their former teacher had involved the theft of a priceless Shihoin artifact, the destruction of the Soukyoku, and had progressed to released shikai before Aizen had so-politely intervened, planning would probably not go amiss.

"Nanao-chan, be a dear and wake up our Squads a little, would you? If this does mean the start of something..." Kyouraku trailed off meaningfully, and Ukitake pursed his lips in response.

"Tell your sister to get the Fifth and Sixth back on enhanced combat schedules, too," Renji added grimly, and Nanao bowed her head in acknowledgement before vanishing in a whipcrack of Shunpo.

"When do you estimate you will have enough information to proceed?" Byakuya asked, cocking an eyebrow as Kyouraku seized at his hat to keep it from being blown off his head in the wind from Nanao's departure.

"A day, two at most. If we're fortunate enough to interview the Espada in their current forms and find that they wish to present no harm to the Seireitei, it will help their cases. More so if they are willing in any way to stand against Aizen and his plans for the future, whatever they may be," Ukitake answered quickly.

"We'll dig up everything we can at the Twelfth and from our people in Karakura," Kyouraku added. "With any fortune, this will be a boon to our side and not Aizen's."

"We can only hope," Ukitake murmured, and the duo swept away with Kyouraku's parting "We'll keep in touch!"

In the ringing stillness that followed their departure, Renji sighed softly and collapsed back onto his cushion. "What do you think?" he asked, directing the question to the table in general. "Is it possible they've come back in peace?"

"It is often said that the chances within the heart are limitless," answered Ginrei from the far side of the table, and Renji sat up enough to meet the Kuchiki patriarch's silver gaze. "My grandson and yourself, Renji, are a truly fine example of the power the heart may wield. As, perhaps, are -"

"Fumio!"

The startled half-yelp from the far end of the table cut through Ginrei's words like shattered glass; both Byakuya and Renji turned to see the young archivist, his skin suddenly flushed and his body shaking, slumping forwards over the table. Ko - the one who had cried out - had already leapt up from her seat and rounded the table to him.

"I beg your pardon," Fumio whispered, his eyes pressed closed behind his glasses. "I suddenly feel... rather unwell..."

"You needn't ask our pardon, Fumio," Ginrei answered, pressing his sword-callused palm, glowing faintly with the distinct green of healing energy, gently against the young man's forehead. Ko, bracing the young man against her shoulder, busied herself checking his pulse and breathing. "I cannot detect any maleficence in your energy. It is likely you have simply overtaxed yourself, although I believe a healer's oversight might be best in any case. Ko?"

"Yes, Ginerei-sama?" the girl replied, her confident hands suddenly becoming unsteady as she raised her head to meet the man's gaze.

"You have begun training for a Squad Medic position, have you not?"

"I..." A bewildered blink, followed by a quickly indrawn breath. "Yes, Ginrei-sama. Captain Unohana has ranked me as competent though a first-year medic's training."

"Good. Please escort Fumio back to his quarters and attend him tonight. I have no wish to risk our finest archivist to whatever manner of illness his overwork has driven him to."

Bewilderment was quickly replaced by sheer astonishment - and not solely in Ko's case. Renji, for his part, was gaping at Ginrei in open disbelief. Tending to an ill member of the noble family was the work of servants, not family wards - particularly not female family wards of marriageable age. For Kuchiki Ginrei himself to be suggesting a breech of protocol so incredible -

"Y-yes, of course, Ginrei-sama," Ko stammered out, wide eyes showing she was just as keenly aware of the breech as Renji was. Nonetheless, she helped Fumio to his feet and got his arm over her shoulder, carefully supporting his weight as she helped him from the room.

Haru made his excuses quickly enough after that, Flashstepping out over the garden wall, the shortest distance between the Kuchiki manor and the Eleventh Division.

Once the three youths were safely out of earshot, Renji spun on his seat to face Byakuya and Ginrei. "What the hell was that all about?" he hissed, sharp and vehement. The two nobles glanced towards one another, holding a brief, wordless conversation that consisted almost entirely of tilted heads and cocked eyebrows.

When the exchange was apparently concluded - a faint huff of laughter from Ginrei signaling its end - Byakuya rose from his seat and circled the table, extending his arm to his grandfather. "It is... the hope of a fortunate and beneficial confluence," Byakuya answered finally, as Ginrei carefully rose to his feet, holding a white-knuckled grasp on Byakuya's forearm.

Unimpressed, Renji narrowed his eyes and continued to stare at the two nobles. "Meaning?"

Byakuya and Ginrei exchanged another round of silent commentary, and Byakuya smirked in response. "You'll see soon enough."

* * *

The soft night breeze, heavy with the asphalt-and-exhaust scent of the city, swirled over the edge of the rooftop of Ichigo's house, raking a million soothing fingers over a scalp that ached with tension.

Sighing softly, Ichigo let his head fall backwards, staring up at the darkened sky, but his mind was tumbling over the scene he had left in his living room - three semi-conscious reincarnated Espada, in the hands of his wife and children.

It wasn't until he ran his palms over his face that he realized his hands were shaking.

He was a private physician, not an Emergency Room doctor like Ishida. He'd been through medical school, done his hospital rotations, and fled the oppressive atmosphere of Karakura General as soon as he was able. And despite his combat experience, his medical work rarely translated into critical-care cases.

Watching the three reborn Espada collapse had been a harsh shock, on top of the shock of learning they were alive once again. But then, all three had started seizing.

The female - Harribel, he remembered from the post-war briefings, had only shuddered as she sank to the floor, Kaien's arms steadying her as she fell. Ulquiorra had shaken, gasping, his body wracked with tremors as Masaki carefully lowered him from the couch, holding his head stable as he shook.

But Grimmjow... _'Always destruction,'_ Ichigo thought wearily, running still-shaking fingers through his hair. Grimmjow's body had tried to tear itself apart.

Ichigo had been the one to force a bite-block from his kit between Grimmjow's teeth, cradle the former Espada's head in his hands to keep his once-enemy from smashing his skull open on Ichigo's floor. He'd held the head of the man who'd tried to kill him, fingers woven in the silky hair, and felt the muscles in the sleek neck, the powerful shoulders, spasming like they wanted to rip one another apart.

When it was over and all three Espada lay still and quiet, Grimmjow unconscious but uninjured beneath his hands, Ichigo had carefully slipped the bite-block from Grimmjow's lax mouth and glanced back to assess the state of the other two.

Emerald-green eyes, clear and far too aware, had met his.

"Kurosaki..."

His name had come as barely more than an exhalation, the narrow chest - _the flash of a sword, ripples of white muscle and the number four in stark black against the skin_ - struggling to regain the breath torn from it.

A gentle touch on his shoulder jerked Ichigo's gaze away from that impossible gaze, pulling his attention to Rukia - standing behind him in her true form, her gigai fidgeting nearby as the modsoul surveyed the room.

"Rukia. I need..." _to get out of here,_ his mind supplied, but his mouth couldn't bring himself to utter that sort of cowardice, couldn't bear to say that he wanted to run away.

But the knowledge in Ulquiorra's eyes, the frantic-fast beat of Grimmjow's heart under his hands, was all too much.

He fled.

* * *

The footsteps behind him were measured and quiet, too cautious to be those of his family or friends. Ichigo didn't react, never taking his gaze from the muted glow of the stars above him, barely visible against the glaring city lights.

There was a shuffle of movement and a sigh from beside him as Ulquiorra - as _Iwao_ - slid down to sit on the roof beside him. Ichigo could feel the weight of the one-time Espada's stare for a long moment, but never took his eyes from the barely visible black sky.

"It's not easy for us either, you realize."

Ichigo blinked. Those were... probably the last opening words he'd expected.

"Twenty years of human memories," Ulqui - _Iwao, dammit_ - informed him, touching one long finger to the side of his own temple. The skin of both hand and face was a healthy soft tan, nothing like the deathly bone-white Ichigo kept expecting to see when he looked at those green, green eyes. "But with those human memories, now, there are thousands of years worth of memories accumulated as a Hollow, and the recollections of my brief time as an Espada."

There was so much boiling up within Ichigo's mind, so many questions and accusations and curiosities, but the only word that he could manage to force off his tongue in response to the remarks was "Brief?"

The thin mouth - the shape of it hadn't changed, even if it was no longer rendered in stark black and white - twisted slightly at one corner, the whisper of expression somewhere between regret and resignation.

"I was among the last of the Espada to be created. When I first encountered you, I had not even finished my maturation."

_Aizen sent a kid to fight me?_ was Ichigo's first thought, and close on its heels was _I really shouldn't be surprised. _

"I'm sorry," Ichigo said, almost without thinking, and finally met Ulquiorra's gaze when Iwao turned to look at him. "For... what happened. It's not how I would have chosen to end the battle." _I'm sorry for killing you_, he couldn't quite bring himself to say.

The impossible eyes held his gaze for a long moment before Iwao nodded once, briefly. "The apology is mutual."

The bland, matter-of-fact tone dragged a bark of laughter from Ichigo, startling them both. "You really haven't changed much, have you?"

"No more than one would expect," Iwao answered dryly, and Ichigo snorted.

"What would you say," he asked quietly, "if I told you that Aizen had returned?"

There was a brief, echoing silence, and Ulquiorra sighed softly. "I would ask what I needed to do to send his soul back to the depths of Hell."

Startled, Ichigo turned to fully face the man beside him, meeting those impossible eyes without flinching for the first time that night. "You'd fight against him? Why? You were the one Espada whose loyalty was never questioned. What's changed?"

The narrow lips tightened for a moment, considering. "I was young and foolish, deluded by lofty promises of power. I thought that following Aizen would bring me to the peak of my strength. It was not until my death that I realized I was simply chasing my own weakness."

Ichigo nodded silently, his gaze assessing the man beside him for a long moment as Ulquiorra waited, comfortable in the silence.

"You really want to help us take Aizen down?" Ichigo asked finally, and Ulquiorra gave him a startled look before nodding, without doubt or pause.

"Good. Did you guys retain your ability to sense reiatsu?"

"We did. Why do you ask?"

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Ichigo rolled open the door of the Shoten's meeting room, smirking a greeting when all eyes in the room turned towards him. "Urahara. I've brought a few additions to the search party."

* * *

~O~

* * *

Translator's Notes:

Ulquiorra: Iwao: 'Stone man'

Harribel: Miyuki: 'Deep snow'

Grimmjow: Takeo 'Violent/warrior male'


	27. Revelations, Revolutions

A/N: ... -_-*

WARNINGS: Semi-graphic descriptions of the results of medical torture, general Kurotsuchi-ness, angst, guilt trips, nasty chapter ending.

BONDS OF HONOR

Chapter 27: Revelations, Revolutions

* * *

For a long moment after Ichigo's announcement, the room was frozen in shocked silence. Then, a disbelieving voice rose from beside the table.

"Grimm-kitty? Ulqui-kun? Halli-chan?"

"Ah, hell. You survived?" Grimmjow scowled, but Gin beamed back at him, completely unbothered.

"Ya don' have t' sound s' happy abou' it," the former Shinigami chortled. "I didn' survive by tha' much."

"So we can see," Ulquiorra answered dryly, stepping around Ichigo and Grimmjow to make his way into the room. A soft gasp as he did so turned everyone's attention to the corner of the room, beside Uryuu, now sitting with the city map he'd been glaring at sliding from his slack hands as he, like everyone else, turned to look at Orihime.

Her eyes had gone huge, starkly grey in her shock-pale face. Her hands, tightly clasped over her mouth, were not tight enough to hide either their shaking or her too-quick breaths.

She ignored the hand that Uryuu set on her shoulder - concerned, reassuring - still staring with wide eyes at the reborn Fourth Espada.

He met her gaze, his own eyes wide and startled, and for a beat there was nothing but breathless, frozen silence.

Until Orihime sobbed his name and all but threw herself across the room, wrapping the startled Espada in a crushing embrace, sobs shaking her as she wept into his shoulder.

Ulquiorra stood frozen for a moment, disbelief locking him in place, staring down at the top of Orihime's head. Just as Ichigo was preparing to reach forward and pull Orihime away, the cold lines of tension around those impossibly green eyes softened, the harshness of the Espada melting away under the compassion of a human man.

A human man who, if tentatively, nonetheless raised his arms to return Orihime's embrace.

"Che," Grimmjow muttered a moment later, kicking bad-naturedly at the floor with his sock-clad toe. "Why does that bastard get the tear-filled reception?"

The last word had barely left his mouth when Orihime wiggled free and, much to Grimmjow's clear surprise, embraced him as well.

"It's good to see you too, Grimmjow," she smiled shyly, as the fighter stared down at her with an expression of flabbergasted disbelief. After a moment, he caught her elbows in a surprisingly gentle grasp and pressed her back enough to look into her face.

"You've gotten old, Princess," he said softly, then, "Ow! What the hell was that for?"

Hallibel - not looking in the least remorseful for the solid smack she'd just delivered to the back of his head - held out her hands for Orihime, who ran, laughing, into the woman's embrace.

Gently stroking her hand over the copper hair, Hallibel glowered at Grimmjow over the top of Orihime's head. "She is happy to see you, Grimmjow. There is no need to insult her."

"It was a statement of fucking fact! They've all gotten old!" Grimmjow snapped, waving a hand to encompass the occupants of the room - several of whom were Shinigami, unaging by human standards, and still more of whom he'd never met.

"All that means is that we have enough experience under our belts to defeat impertinent brats such as yourself," Uryuu answered coolly, stepping forward to shake hands and exchange faint, wry smiles with Ulquiorra.

"Like to see you try," Grimmjow smirked, gripping tighter than necessary when Uryuu shook his hand as well.

"Perhaps some other time, when we've dealt with the problems at hand."

Grimmjow smirked, Ulquiorra muttered something scathing, and in the ensuing chaos of arguments, introductions, and explanations, only Uryuu saw Urahara grab Ichigo's arm and drag the substitute from the room.

* * *

Pulling the door of Shinji's office closed behind them, Urahara turned and fixed Ichigo with a steady glare. His grey eyes were eerily luminescent in the darkness of the room, reflecting the faint light of the computer monitor on the crowded desk beside them.

"Kurosaki -"

"They don't want Aizen back any more than we do, Kisuke. They want to help us stop him," Ichigo snapped, bulling his way forward and into Urahara's space, forcing the man a half-step backwards, his hip bumping against the corner of the desk.

Holding his hands up to ward off the younger man's anger, Urahara sidestepped the desk's edge before speaking again. "That wasn't what I was going to ask. They were in your home and helpless, Ichigo. If they had presented a threat to you and your family, they wouldn't be here."

Ichigo didn't respond; his silence was acknowledgment enough. The War had taken many casualties, the innocence of the once-young Substitute among them.

"I was going to ask if you would be all right working with Grimmjow," Urahara continued gently. "I know how much it affected you, seeing what Kurotsuchi had done to him."

A shudder swept its way over Ichigo's body, remembered horror tightening his jaw and fists. Urahara had been the only one to dare speak to him after that discovery, when the still-teenaged warrior had stormed back through his Senkaimon, covered in the blood of a man who should have been his enemy, wishing it belonged to one that should have been an ally.

Through gritted teeth, Ichigo spit out his answer, defiance not masking the faint quiver in his tone. "I'll be fine, Kisuke. Grimmjow's managing, so I can too."

Urahara frowned in response, but didn't try to stop the other man as he swept out of the office again, light from the hall flaring and vanishing as the door slammed shut again, heading back to the meeting room and his ever-stranger collection of friends. The heavy shields that Hachi had woven into the office's walls left both Kisuke's ears and reiatsu echoing with a dull silence.

Sighing softly, Urahara dropped into the chair behind the desk, propping his elbows on the worn wood and letting his head fall into his hands. "I hope you're right, Ichigo."

"He should be," answered a rough voice. "He's a fair judge of his own strength."

Urahara didn't even look up as Isshin melted out of the shadows, the last traces of a Bakudo 26, _Kyokkou, _falling away, the bent light that had concealed Isshin's presence from his son vanishing into the surrounding darkness.

"Might I remind you," Urahara sighed, still not raising his head, "that _you_ were not the one who saw him after he found Grimmjow sliced apart in Kurotsuchi's laboratories?"

"This is where you point out that I'm a terrible father and a worse friend, I'm sure. I've heard it before, Kisuke." His footsteps steady even in the darkness, Isshin strode across the room to retrieve the chair from Kensei's desk, and dragged it back to sit opposite Urahara. Only the barest edges of the light from the monitor reached him, leaving him nothing more than a reflection of eyes and the ghostly white of his torn Captain's haori.

"Ichigo is the one who refused to kill Grimmjow on the principle of mercy," Urahara sighed. "And he's the one, a year after the War, who finds Grimmjow strapped to a table in Kurotsuchi's lab, still alive and half dissected. And he comes back to me, the fool who gave Kurotsuchi freedom and access to power in the first place."

"Self-pity doesn't suit you, either," Isshin snapped, and shuffling movement in the dark told Urahara that Isshin had sat back in the chair, folded his arms, folded his legs. Walling himself off, as always.

"I can show you the tapes, if you like." The tapes, video recordings taken from both within the Twelfth Division and the streets of Seireitei, showing Ichigo, all frantic fury as he tore the bonds away from the Espada he'd fought nearly to the death. How Grimmjow had scrambled from the table, one arm clutching his abdomen to keep his guts from spilling out, staggering across the room to seize Pantera from the table where it had been so-carelessly left. How, once the sword was in his hand, he'd fled the Twelfth Division, fragments of the disintegrating blade falling behind him.

Ichigo had chased after him, but shock and horror had numbed the young man enough to dull his speed, and he didn't catch up with Grimmjow until the Espada was beyond the boundaries of Seireitei.

Ichigo had caught him just in time to watch Grimmjow tear open a Gargaunta with a shaking hand, falling more than leaping through the porthole. It had slammed closed a split-second before Ichigo could reach it.

"I've seen the tapes," Isshin answered, voice level and expressionless. "How long do you think Grimmjow lasted in Hueco Mundo with those injuries?"

He knew, as well as Urahara did, that the once-proud warrior had likely been dead by the time he struck the sand.

What Urahara hated the most was that he knew Ichigo knew, as well.

"Ichigo viewed Grimmjow's experiences as a failure in himself," Kisuke murmured, raising his head at last. As dark as the room was, the dull glow of the monitor was a blinding glare, Isshin's form virtually invisible behind it. "It's remarkable how things like that tend to run in families, don't you think?"

Isshin didn't answer, but the spike in his reiatsu was sharp enough that Kisuke felt it on his skin, not the tiny needles that Yoroichi's reiatsu could manifest, but blades, cruel enough to cut. A bit absently, he wondered if he was bleeding.

"The Espada are willing to help," he said, shifting an arm to prop his chin up on the palm of his hand. His fingers skimmed the skin just below his cheekbone as he did so, and he wasn't surprised when one fingertip touched wetness.

"They won't be of any more assistance than the children, or the trainees, or anyone else," Isshin snapped back, and Urahara reflexively raised his own reiatsu enough to shield from Isshin's anger. "I've been over places in this city that they wouldn't even dream of, and I've found nothing. _Nothing_, Kisuke! If he's being held in this city, it's somewhere beyond even my reach."

* * *

As Ichigo slipped back into the meeting room, he found the group scattered to the various corners. His sons and most of the women had clustered together near the doors, the sound of Orihime's excited chatter carrying to the opposite side of the room, to where Kensei and Grimmjow were having what appeared to be a staring contest while Kiego watched in disbelief.

At the central table, Shinji, Ulquiorra, and Uryuu had joined Gin, the four of them clustered in front of the holographic map of Karakura. Slipping quietly through the door, Ichigo made his way to the table and quietly settled himself on the edge of the group.

"...and you decided against reporting his disappearance to the police?" Ulquiorra was asking, one long finger tracing a road through the district around Karakura General.

"What made you believe that?" Uryuu snapped, the words too fast and the tone too sharp, too defensive.

Ulquiorra didn't so much as blink an eye. "Because his case file hasn't appeared on my desk yet," came the bland answer, and the sheer confusion was enough to silence Uryuu for a few long seconds.

When he'd traced the road to its end, Ulquiorra lowered his hand and turned to face the bewildered Quincy. "I am a private investigator authorized to perform freelance work for the Karakura Police Department. Over the past six weeks I've been assisting them with dozens of missing-persons cases."

"What the hell makes you think his dad is part of your police investigation, though?" Grimmjow, staring contest with Kensei apparently finished, sauntered over and flopped down next to Ichigo, the mannerism still so much like an oversized, lethargic cat that Ichigo had to stifle a snort. The warrior barely spared a glance at him, his attention wholly fixed on Ulquiorra.

"All of the other victims have possessed some degree of spiritual awareness -"

"Jackass, you didn't remember what reiatsu was until an hour ago. How the hell do you prove that?"

Ulquiorra's eyes narrowed, irritation darkening his gaze as he turned to glare at the warrior. "Because I actually apply my thought processes to more than determining how best to damage things, Grimmjow," he snapped. "Investigation into each of the victims turned up either specific behaviors or possessions that would indicate a level of spiritual awareness. Chakra stones. Spirit-shrines. Family histories of extrasensory perception. Frequent visits to the recent death-sites of people they had no association with. _Journals detailing their experiences with ghosts_ -"

"I get it, I get it!" Grimmjow barked, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "How does that fucking _help_ anything?"

Ulquiorra's eyes narrowed into emerald slits, a cruel smirk edging the corners of his mouth. "I know there must be a brain in your skull, Grimmjow, because something must be keeping your heart beating and your lungs breathing, but if you could bring yourself to use it for a greater purpose, like _thought_ -"

"You bitch!"

"You _wish_."

"Blow me," Grimmjow snapped back, his hands curling into fists as he lurched to his feet, Ichigo scrambling up after him to seize the back of Grimmjow's shirt, hoping to keep the one-time Espada from bodily attacking his former superior.

Entirely unbothered, Ulquiorra simply smirked. "Not in public."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Ichigo burst out, as Grimmjow - shocked into insensate silence - stared at Ulquiorra in utter disbelief, his mouth gaping.

"Gentlemen - and I use the term loosely - now is not the time," interrupted Kisuke, stepping in between the pair. "But by all means feel free to sort out your no-doubt troubled relationship in my establishment at a later date."

While the inhabitants of the table boggled at Urahara's abrupt reappearance, Masaki quietly stepped out of the group that had gathered around Orihime and the newly-returned Hallibel.

"I have a question, Uryuu-san," she said, calling the attention of the bewildered men to her. "Is it possible for one person to... harness, or steal, the spiritual energy of another Sensitive human?"

Uryuu grimaced in response, turning his attention to the young woman as Grimmjow's knees folded under him, dumping the warrior unceremoniously back on his cushion. Ulquiorra's smirk broadened slightly before he, too, turned his attention to Ishida.

"Yes. For a Quincy - albeit one without a moral code - to do something of that nature is entirely possible," he replied.

Standing behind the young Quincy, Urahara's frown deepened. "One of the unfortunate side-effects of Mayuri's research into the Quincy was the amount of knowledge he was able to extract," the blond Captain remarked, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "With the information he gained, a scientist of my caliber would have very little difficulty creating a system that could completely drain a human of their spiritual powers, but allow the energy to be transferred or stored somewhere else. While it's possible for the life of the drained human to be spared - the Gotei was, for a brief time, considering subjecting Ichigo to that fate - it would be much easier to set up a system that simply removes all energy from the empowered human, including what is required to sustain their life force."

The silence that permeated the room was deafening.

"Kisuke," Ichigo began slowly, "how much of this research did Aizen have access to before he revolted?"

His mouth a grim line, Urahara's answer dropped like stones into the tense silence of the room.

"All of it."

* * *

A monitor beeped.

Brown eyes flickered to it, narrowing with a faint frown. Deft hands adjusted the rate of the fast-flowing IV that kept his subject alive yet... pliable... and left his rare reiatsu free for the taking. The mixture in the drip line - nutrients, sedatives, and a demon's brew of reiatsu boosters that had been so kindly developed by Kurotsuchi during his research into the Quincy - flowed a little faster into the limp form strapped to the table beneath him.

Another monitor, situated at the far end of the room and isolated from the mad spiderweb of wires that connected victim to machine, let out a sharp trill that drew both men's attention.

Ishida Ryuuken's awareness could only be seen in the flicker of his eyes - the restless roam of his steel-grey gaze, pupils blown wide by the drugs in his system, lit on the monitor at the same second his captor's did.

"Interesting," the other man murmured, slipping away from Ryuuken's side to examine the remote monitor. "New reiatsu signatures have appeared in proximity to Kurosaki's little band of fools. Not Shinigami - the power isn't refined enough for that. More of his empowered human friends, I would imagine. It seems they're calling in some aid in order to search for you."

Despite himself, Ryuuken could not stop the flicker of hope that lit the depths of his eyes. Even across the room, his captor read the minute change in his expression without trouble.

Resetting the alert on the monitor, the other man quickly returned to the Quincy's side, gentle fingers brushing Ryuuken's sweat-soaked bangs off his forehead. "You needn't concern yourself, though." With his long-practiced benign smile fixed firmly on his young face, Aizen leaned forward to meet his captive's gaze.

"They will never be able to find us."

* * *

"Pretty ballsy plan. You think it'll work?"

Startled, Byakuya jerked his head up from the pile of records he'd been pouring over, blinking at his partner as Renji stepped through the door to the Kuchiki Archival Library.

"To which plan are you referring?" he asked, after a hesitant moment. Renji had clearly just come from his Squad's barracks; his haori was tinted brown with the dust of the training fields, and while his hands and face were clean of the blood and dust he'd no doubt acquired on them, he smelled of the harsh soap used in the unranked officer's communal baths.

Renji didn't answer immediately, cutting his eyes instead to where Kuchiki Satoru, one of the junior archivists, lingered quietly in the lee of the shelves near Byakuya's table.

Had it been Fumio or his grandfather tending the Archives, they would have simply spoken freely; both men had earned their complete trust. And while neither of them questioned Satoru's loyalty, they had also not spent the same torturous hours of research at his side that granted Fumio their trust. "Abarai and I will attend the documents I have removed, Satoru," Byakuya said, his tone brooking no argument. "You are dismissed until morning."

"Of course, Byakuya-sama," the young man answered, and quickly bowed himself out, slipping silently through the door Renji had just entered. As soon as it had closed behind him, Renji turned his gaze back to his partner, his eyes sharp.

"The plan that your Grandfather and Hikifune put into action yesterday at our little get-together, of course," Renji replied, striding across the room to drag out the chair beside Byakuya and drop into it. "Unless you've got anything else in the works I should know about?"

"That plan was not mine to begin with," Byakuya answered, carefully closing the record-book he'd been reviewing and gently pushing it aside before turning in his seat to face Renji. "My Grandfather and Kirio-san alerted me to their intentions only hours before they implemented it." He paused briefly, eyes scanning Renji's expressionless face for some sign of reaction, before adding, "You saw through it very quickly."

The note of pride in the noble's voice was more invigorating for Renji than the cold-water scrub he'd subjected himself to had been, and the redhead allowed a smile to crack the weary blankness of his face. "Wasn't too hard to figure once the reiatsu settled," he grunted, waving a hand to dismiss the praise, even though his eyes gleamed with it. "I'm guessin' it was Ginrei's idea, because your Grandfather's a scheming son of a bitch, but how in the hell did he get Hikifune to go along with it?"

"Of that, I am not certain." Closing his eyes, Byakuya shook his head, his expression tinged with melancholy amusement. "There has always been a degree of affection between the two, although their respective duties have kept them from acting on it. It has, however, made both of them exceptionally willing to go to great lengths for one another."

"Yeah, I'd call actin' as a transfer channel for, what, over half of Ginrei's reiatsu? That's a pretty great length. Had to do it for Unohana once, it hurts like hell."

Byakuya nodded, a faint, sad smile touching the corners of his eyes. "They have both proven exceedingly dedicated, both to the future of the Kuchiki House, and..."

"And to your happiness," Renji finished, shifting his chair a bit so that he could see the volumes Byakuya had been pouring over. "House adoption records?"

"Yes. I wish prepare my argument for the Council now, so that there will be no questions when the time comes."

"You really think they're gonna argue it? Fumio's blood's as pure as anyone in the Clan, and Ko's workin' her way towards being a damned good Shinigami. You'd think any kid they have would be exactly what the Council wanted."

"What the Council wants is a docile, agreeable Clan Head who will bow to their whims, and certainly never express ties to Rukongai or commoner's blood," Byakuya grimaced, pulling the record-book and the scroll he'd been taking notes on back towards him. "Suffice it to say that I, much as my father was, am their absolute worst nightmare."

Chuckling deeply, Renji leaned across his partner to grab another of the record-books off the stack on the table's corner. "Good. Let's give 'em something to be afraid of."

* * *

Outside the door of the Archives, Kuchiki Satoru quietly straightened, lifting his ear away from the door, a soft frown set upon his face.

* * *

There was a shop in First District of Rukongai, The Blue Lotus, that had been favored by the Kuchiki scribes and archivists for centuries. Selling an incredible array of papers, inks, journals, and paints, the shop did a hefty business with both the noble houses and well-to-do Shinigami.

It was in front of this store that Kuchiki Masa had ordered his manservant, Jun, to wait for the inevitable presence of a member of the Kuchiki House.

It was pure bad fortune that, after three weeks of waiting, the Kuchiki that eventually happened by was none other than Satoru, deeply distracted by what he had learned only hours before.

* * *

"Ah, Jun," smiled Masa, his expression benign as his manservant shoved the reeling archivist onto a pristine, silk-covered pillow on the floor of the roughly-built shack. "You have done well for me."

Satoru froze in the process of grasping for the knot of the blindfold tied far too tightly over his eyes, his suddenly-motionless hands tangled in the ends of the rough fabric. "You're -"

His smile beatific, Masa waved a hand at his servant. "Come now, Jun. Remove Satoru-kun's blindfold. There is no need for our young guest to be uncomfortable, after all."

The blindfold fell from Satoru's face in a heartbeat, leaving the young man blinking, wide-eyed and disbelieving in the sudden light. His eyes searched the tiny hut for a few frantic seconds, skimming over the waiting manservant beside him, the scarred, silent man crouching in the corner of the room, before finally settling on his host.

"Masa-san?" he whispered incredulously, staring at the man seated above him on the small wooden dais. "But - they told us you were dead!"

"Is that so? What a charming fiction Byakuya-kun has spread," Masa mused, light humor coloring his tone. "Tell me, dear Satoru, how does our beloved Byakuya fare in these trying days? Have he and Abarai solved the question of producing a viable heir to carry the honor of our glorious House?"

Paling, Satoru sat back on his heels, hunching his shoulders as his gaze skittered away from Masa's ink-black eyes. "If Byakuya-sama told us that you were dead, Masa-san, it was for good reason. I would not betray his trust by giving you knowledge he had deemed unsuited to your ears."

"Ah," Masa murmured, his eyes narrowing a bit. "But you do have that knowledge, then, Satoru-kun?"

Realizing his mistake a fraction of a second too late, the young archivist shook his head frantically, gasping incoherent denials.

It was a wasted effort.

With a hiss of pain escaping him as he forced his abused body into motion, Tsutomu lurched forward, plunging a delicate needle into Satoru's neck with unerring accuracy.

"Well done, Tsutomu," Masa remarked calmly, as Jun quickly caught Satoru's shoulders, easing the now-unconscious archivist to the floor. "It's good to see that your time at the hands of Shihoin and her pet were not wasted, if you have learned their needle-craft so expertly."

Forcing a swallow down his scarred throat, Tsutomu twisted his spine into a silent bow to acknowledge his master's praise. When Masa responded with a faint nod, the former spy turned back to the unconscious form on the floor, withdrawing a slim leather case from the front of his kosode. Unfolding it, he settled it flat on the floor beside his knees, the hundreds of hair-thin needles it contained gleaming dully in the light.

* * *

"I... will not betray... Byakuya-sama," Satoru panted, sweat beading on his temples as Tsutomu expertly placed another needle. It joined dozens of others like it, scattered across the young man's slender back and shoulders, each one stimulating a pain-point. Stubborn loyalty and a Kuchiki's iron core of strength had kept the young man resilient for far longer than any of his captors expected; the simulated daylight within the cavern had begun to fade, forcing Jun to light the lanterns on the walls of the house to grant Tsutomu enough light to work.

"No?" Masa countered, eyebrows arched. He had not shifted from his earlier position, watching over the proceedings with a casually unbothered air. "You are a very junior archivist, Satoru-kun. So junior, in fact, that I cannot imagine Byakuya willingly giving such information to you."

Satoru did not respond beyond a pained whine, his bound form struggling to curl up and protect itself, rough ropes biting cruelly into his skin as instinct battled reality.

"I did not imagine so," Masa murmured, stroking a contemplative hand across his chin. "So it would seem to me, Satoru-kun, that you have already betrayed your beloved Byakuya, simply by having information that you should never have been privy to. So tell me, child," he hissed, eyes flashing as he leaned forward, "what is one - more - _betrayal_?"

Another needle lanced through Satoru's skin as Masa's words struck, and Satoru surrendered with a scream of agonized despair.

* * *

"Rukongai! Rukongai! Every time I turn, the glory of my House is being trampled into the mud!" Masa roared, slashing a furious hand through the air. Satoru's unconscious form was slumped on the floor before the disgraced noble; he paid it no more heed than a beetle as he paced. "I grow weary of waiting for Aizen's plans to come to fruition in the Living World! Kuchiki Byakuya will be the death of my House if he is not stopped! There will be nothing left for Aizen to grant me upon his ascent if he does not ascend _soon_!"

Spinning away, he swept the hem of his hakama away from the motionless form on the floor. "Tsutomu! Use whatever miserable kidou you can muster to destroy his memory of this, and leave him at the city walls. Let him believe an accident has befallen him. He may be of use to me again if he continues to venture from the House."

Without another word, Masa shoved aside the curtain that separated the main section of the shack from his private quarters, storming back to his futon to rest.

Jun and Tsutomu exchanged glances; Jun's wary, Tsutomu's resigned. At a gesture from the scarred operative, Jun carefully lifted Satoru's limp form onto his shoulder and followed Tsutomu's hobbling form out of the shack.

The trip back to the First District was slow, limited both by Tsutomu's near-crippled gait and the necessity to avoid detection. It had been late afternoon when Satoru had first been seized; the night had slipped away to near dawn by the time they reached the boarder of the District.

Through a combination of sign language and rough whispers, Tsutomu directed Jun into placing Satoru's unconscious form in a ditch at the edge of the forest, then waved the servant away.

"You're certain?" Jun asked, exhaustion and relief warring in his tone. His futon, thin as it was, waited for him back at the shack, and if he was not hobbled by Tsutomu's slow gait, he might make it back to their hideaway in time for a precious hour or two of rest before Masa-sama again demanded his services.

Tsutomu nodded decisively, waving the servant off with a sure hand. Jun hesitated only a moment more before jerking a short bow to the other man and setting off for the mountains.

Tsutomu knelt beside Satoru's limp form as he watched Jun go, waiting patiently until the other man was beyond the limits of all his senses.

Only when he was assured he was alone did he quietly slip out the knife he had concealed within his kosode.

After all, a robbery gone wrong was much more logical than Masa's plan of an amnesia-inducing accident.

And a corpse, after all, was guaranteed never to spread tales.


End file.
